Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Monika Panayotova participated in a round-table on the subject “Parliamentary Elections 2009”

15/05/09

On 13 May 2009 in the New Bulgarian University was held a round-table on the subject “Parliamentary Elections 2009”. The event was attended by Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Chairman of PP GERB and Monika Panayotova, Chairwoman of MGERB, vice-president of the National Assembly Mrs. Anastasia Mozer, Veselin Metodiev from DSB, Dimitar lozanov from UDF, Nikolai Malinov from BSP, Nikolai Svinarov from BNM, representative of “LIDER” party, as well as students and lecturers from the NBU.

At the beginning of the meeting the representatives from the different parties made a brief presentation, as they emphasized on the impossibility of the current government to cope with the biggest problems in the country – corruption, the impact of the economic crisis, criminality, emigration of educated people.

The Chairwoman of the youth organization of PP GERB and candidate for deputy in the EP from GERB Monika Panayotova emphasized on the role of the young people in the state’s politics. Miss Panayotova explained briefly, clearly but emotionally why we should vote at the forthcoming elections, for the importance of every vote, for the responsibility at our future, for our unwillingness to be observers outside for what happened in the country. The initiatives of MGERB that were popular and interesting among the people– “Why to vote?” and “What are you going to do on 7 June?” united in the moto “Vote so to be heard”, were presented. “Young people broke the boundaries aiming the change as it is shocking at the beginning”, the Chairwoman of MGERB commented about the willingness of young people in Bulgaria to persist their own attitude and to take responsibility for that.

Big interest provoked the representative of BSP and Chairman of “Rusofili” Movement Nikolai Malinov. According to him “there are two types of political behavior – first of sprinters and second of marathon runners. Sprinters are the new political parties that accept that they could fast change the situation in the country, while the marathon runners are those of BSP and we slowly but certainly move toward change”. At this statement Mr.Tsvetanov answered with positive sense of humour that it didn’t matter how was the discipline but the movement. And at the speed of BSP we were going to die before the change.
“The new political parties walk on the right pavement as the old ones certainly remain on the left”, Mr. Malinov also said. According to him the socialist were not guilty for the economic crisis. But the situation in the country and public opinion show something different.

The Chairman of PP GERB emphasized on the role of GERB as a new political party that in short term succeeded in winning the people’s faith and proving that it was serious and successive in the efforts to build new and better European Bulgaria. In address to Mr. Malinov the chairman of GERB said “What we suffered, we think would never repeat”. Thus Mr. Tsvetanov accented that GERB is the unique and real alternative to the current government that led Bulgaria to the unacceptable situation to lose millions of euros. According to him this happened because of corruption, incompetence and abuse of power of the government. The Chairman of GERB also commented that in the current situation when the world suffered the global financial and economic crisis, Bulgaria could expect more problems if the three-party coalition remained in power. For PP GERB is important to stimulate the middle and small business, conducting of dialogues and listening to the critics. GERB strives for transparency in the communication with the Bulgarian citizens. This transparency is part of the new dialogic political culture which the party wants to establish in Bulgaria. Mr.Tsvetanov finished his speech with “I may be young in politics, but I want to exit with honour from it!” This words exulted the audience that answered by applause.

On the meeting there was also discussion on which to the young people in the hall was given the opportunity to raise their question to the guests connected with everything that interested them in the political life. The big activity, accuracy of the questions and the well grounded answers made the discussion really interesting.

In spite of the critics toward BSP for the inability of the party to cope with corruption, to exercise control over the special services like SANS (State Agency for National Security), the budgetary problems, all of the contestants agreed that the forthcoming elections were extremely important. According to Nikolai Svinarov the restoration of parliamentarism was necessary. Namely because of this if the citizens wanted to exert influence over the government of the country, it was important for them to vote and thus to express their civil standing.