site.btaMedia Review: September 23

The October 25 presidential election is the dominant topic in Wednesday’s news coverage, with media outlets focusing on the presidential tickets and the candidates’ positions.

POLITICS

The Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reports that Vazrazhdane announced its presidential ticket on Tuesday, with party leader Kostadin Kostadinov running for president and Petar Volgin for vice president. Speaking on BNT’s morning show on Wednesday, Volgin was adamant that the president should have more powers, including the power to initiate legislation, call referendums and play a more prominent role in appointing the government. He rejected the practice of forming committees to nominate candidates, calling it a way of avoiding responsibility.  

Speaking on the Bulgarian National Radio, political analyst Ivo Indzhov commented on Vazrazhdane’s presidential ticket. He said that the party leader’s entry as a presidential candidate appears to be an attempt to win back votes he lost to Progressive Bulgaria in the parliamentary elections earlier this year. “There is a rationale for seeking to reclaim the patriotic, nationalist niche and restore its significance, because more moderate nationalists chose Radev, and the entry of the Kostadinov-Volgin ticket will certainly add more intrigue to this election,” Indzhov said. 

Also on BNT, MEP Nikola Minchev, who is part of the committee nominating Andrey Gurov for president and Georgi Kandev for vice president, commented on the differences between Gurov and Iliana Iotova. “Geopolitics is one of the main differences between Iliana Iotova and Andrey Gurov.” “Iliana Iotova’s positioning reflects what Rumen Radev did as president and continues to do as prime minister. In contrast, Gurov has taken a more unequivocal position and would continue to uphold it as president,” Minchev said. “If Iotova remains president, it would be a natural continuation of the policy pursued by Rumen Radev’s government. There would be no corrective force, but rather an excessive concentration of decision-making in the country,” he added. “Besides me, there are no political figures on Gurov and Kandev’s nomination committee. It has a strong civic character, whereas Iotova and [her running mate Kiril] Valchev’s nomination committee has a significant political presence,” the MEP said.

An article in Sega.bg argues that a runoff between Iotova and Gurov is now “practically certain, especially given the large number of candidates, each of whom will draw away a small segment of the electorate.” The outlet notes that there are 24 nomination committees—twice as many as in the 2021 presidential election—but only eight parties have registered, with no coalitions at all. The conclusion, according to the article, is that presidential contenders prefer to present themselves as independent candidates rather than be associated with parties. The author attributes this to the April parliamentary elections, which “dealt a severe blow” to the party system: “GERB and Vazrazhdane suffered unprecedented defeats; the Bulgarian Socialist Party, There Is Such a People, and the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms were completely decimated; Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria failed to gain anything.” The author argues that most of the “independents” are “virtually unknown to public” and appear more interested in reminding voters of their existence than making a serious bid for victory. Those “independent” contenders who stand a realistic chance are poorly disguised party candidates, the article notes, adding that Iotova is backed by Progressive Bulgaria, the BSP, ABV and other remnants of the left.” She made no attempt to distance herself from her party origins, presenting her committee alongside Rumen Radev and figures such as Georgi Parvanov and Petar Vitanov. The article describes her as “the candidate of the old, post-communist left.” Gurov is presented as the candidate of Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, with his appearance and behavior signaling identification with the “affluent urban professional” class and his political orientation conveyed through slogans expressing support for Ukraine and the EU. The problem, according to the article, is that the broad popular vote in April went to Rumen Radev, whose profile is “completely different.” The shortcomings of the leading candidates, the author argues, have turned attention toward Vazrazhdane. The party has an opportunity to partly recover after losing two-thirds of its voters to Progressive Bulgaria, while Volgin has the advantage of sharing those voters’ ideas and sentiments without being a party member. Kostadin Kostadinov, however, chose to run for president himself, despite receiving barely 100,000 votes in the 2021 presidential election and leading a party that won fewer than 140,000 votes in April. The author concludes that Volgin “will not help him pull very far ahead.” Under these circumstances, the runoff between Iotova and Gurov is described as “practically certain.” The article expects GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), backed by some 700,000 voters, to then bring their political weight to bear, potentially returning the election to the “old pattern” in which a “behind-the-scenes deal” channels support toward one of the candidates at the last moment.

Appearing on Nova TV's morning show, journalist Emilia Milcheva said the Vazrazhdane presidential ticket could attract more radical voters who might then redirect their votes to another candidate. Journalist Ruzha Raycheva pointed to what she described as a more moderate tone recently adopted by Kostadinov, particularly on foreign policy. According to the commentators, the two candidates could play different roles, with Kostadinov seeking broader positioning and Volgin taking the more hard-line positions. Asked how Vazrazhdane voters might shift their support in a potential runoff, Raycheva said: “The electorate that Vazrazhdane has is very different from the voters that Progressive Bulgaria already has the potential to attract.” According to Raycheva, Iotova could attract more moderate voters with pro-Russian views, while those with more radical views would remain with Vazrazhdane. As to how voters of GERB and MRF might affect the distribution of votes, Milcheva said these voters were unlikely to unite behind a single candidate because of the lack of a candidate of their own. 

On bTV's morning show, political analyst Maria Pirgova focused on the large number of presidential tickets, saying it reflected changes in Bulgaria’s political system following the April elections and the growing position of Progressive Bulgaria. Political analyst Teodor Slavev said the large number of candidates did not necessarily mean greater competition, pointing to the absence of candidates from some major political forces and suggesting that turnout could be an important factor.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa carries an interview with Commission for Consumer Protection (CCP) Chair Maya Manolova, who discusses consumer prices, regulation and the measures she says the commission plans to take. Citing figures from the Commission for Protection of Competition, she points to markups of 80–90%, and in some cases as high as 130%, arguing that Bulgarian consumers are paying prices close to European levels despite having significantly lower purchasing power. She also attributes part of the recent price pressures to the way Bulgaria introduced the euro, arguing that consumers have effectively seen prices converted on a 1:1 basis, while wages were converted at the official exchange rate. Manolova is critical of the Care Basket initiative, arguing that the large supermarket chains, which she says account for more than 70% of the market, leave consumers with few alternatives. As a possible solution, she supports introducing the concept of “fair value,” against which prices could be assessed. She proposes publicly identifying significant deviations from this value and imposing sanctions for excessive markups. Manolova outlines several major areas requiring intervention, including fuel, food and medicine prices, heating, electricity and water, as well as debt-collection practices. She says that CCP will examine the prices of over-the-counter medicines and the entire pharmaceutical supply chain, including cases in which manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacies are linked through common ownership. She also says the commission will scrutinize contracts and fees charged by mobile operators, heating companies, water utilities and electricity providers. In particular, she raises concerns about heating-accounting fees, saying the CCP will pursue class-action lawsuits where companies refuse to voluntarily remove unfair contractual clauses. Manolova identifies debt-collection practices as another major area requiring intervention. She describes cases in which very small or long-standing debts have allegedly been resold and increased dramatically. She says the commission will work on legislation to regulate collection companies and will also propose changes to the work of private enforcement agents.

JUSTICE

Capital.bg has a story about proposed amendments to the State Agency for National Security (SANS) Act, which it says would concentrate excessive power in the hands of the agency’s politically appointed chairman and weaken safeguards for democratic oversight, transparency and citizens’ rights. The draft would give the chairman the power to determine SANS’s internal structure, activities and areas of operation through non-public internal acts, while also transferring control over the agency’s property to him. The article says the proposed changes would also expand SANS’s operational powers, potentially allowing the agency to collect information and use intrusive methods in cases involving behaviour perceived as a threat to national security, even when it involves the lawful exercise of constitutional rights such as freedom of expression, protests, investigative journalism or civic activism. It further argues that the draft conflicts with EU law and international treaties and ignores recent rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU. The article also focuses on a proposed “absolute and non-appealable” ban on access to information held by SANS, including information about its employees, collaborators and people who have been subject to operational surveillance. The author argues that the draft fails to introduce the independent oversight or indirect access mechanisms required by recent European court rulings, potentially leaving citizens without an effective way to establish whether unlawful measures have been used against them. Other controversial provisions concern access to air passengers’ PNR data, a ban on SANS employees participating in “secret and/or informal organizations and societies,” and changes to classified-information rules. The latter would allow classification periods to be extended repeatedly without a limit and would remove the provision under which information becomes accessible under the Access to Public Information Act after the protection period expires, which the article describes as creating a possibility for “eternal secrecy.” The article says that the bill should be withdrawn and completely redrafted by a broadly representative working group.

CRIME

Trud reports that five people have been arrested in connection with a scheme involving shell companies, front men and the import of goods from Bulgaria into northern Greece, with 20 others under suspicion. According to information cited by the Greek press, some of the goods entered Greece without the necessary documentation and were subsequently sold on the Greek market through companies linked to the network. The scheme reportedly focused mainly on alcoholic beverages, which were brought into wholesale warehouses with documentation stating that they would be sold to supermarkets and retailers, but were in fact sold online at significantly lower prices. The losses to the Greek state from unpaid taxes and VAT are estimated at more than EUR 11 million, the media outlet adds.