Dryanovo Mayor Trifon Panchev is the only mayor of a municipality who is entering the battle for the leadership position in the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). Initially, there were 18 candidates and there was one more mayor among them – the mayor of the Rhodope Municipality, Pavel Mihaylov, but the election commission did not allow him to continue the race.
Panchev has 8 years of party experience – exactly the minimum required of candidates for chairman. He is 36 years old, a lawyer by education and a second-term mayor of the small municipality of Dryanovo.
Panchev is an outspoken critic of the government of Kornelia Ninova. In his few appearances since announcing his candidacy for party leader, he has not spared criticism of the state in which Ninova has left the BSP. “Whoever the next leader is, it will be very difficult for him, given the state of the party,” he announced on Eurocom TV.
With his candidacy, Trifon Panchev wants to show, as he himself said, that since in a small municipality like Dryanovo the BSP is the first political force, this could be a model for gaining trust in other municipalities where BSP mayors govern.
Regarding his expectations in the election of a party leader, he said that at some point there will be a regrouping and the candidates who received less support will support one of the others. But he did not say which of the other contenders he sympathizes with the most.
According to “Dnevnik”, there are currently two moods in the BSP – positive due to participation in a government with a GERB mandate and negative due to the same.
At the plenum on January 12, Trifon Panchev voted “abstain” for the BSP to enter the government, “Dnevnik” indicates.
