Bulgaria’s major political parties begin preparations for 2019 European Parliament, municipal elections
Source：sofiaglobe.com
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Sofia
Update Time：2019/02/12
The national election headquarters of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party held its first meeting on January 4 to prepare for the two elections scheduled to be held in the country in 2019 – for the European Parliament on May 26, and for municipal councils and mayors in the autumn.
GERB said in a statement that the meeting set the structure of the national election staff, to be headed by Tsvetan Tsvetanov, parliamentary leader of GERB and a deputy leader of Borissov’s party.
Between January 7 and 11, the staff will draft organisational preparations for the district and municipal elections headquarters for the two elections in 2019.
On January 20, GERB will hold a national pre-election meeting in Sofia. At that meeting, the national election headquarters will present the events and organisational activities to be carried out by the municipal, district and national election staff, the statement said.
The meeting will be attended by the national and municipal leaderships, MPs, MEPs, mayors and municipal councillors elected on GERB lists, as well as Cabinet ministers from the GERB quota.
GERB is to conduct a tour of the country with what it calls a “national civil dialogue initiative” with the theme “Europe in our home”.
Kornelia Ninova’s opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, the second-largest group in the National Assembly and which has currently the second-largest share of Bulgaria’s seats in the European Parliament, will hold a national congress at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia on January 26.
Ninova will address the congress on the topic “Bulgaria and Europe today. A vision for tomorrow. The tasks of the BSP” while there also will be a report by Sergei Stanishev on the activities between 2014 and 2019 of MEPs elected on the Bulgarian socialist list in the previous election.
Among the dynamics within the BSP is who will lead the party’s list for the May 2019 European Parliament elections. Ninova seeks to displace Stanishev, with whom she has open policy differences, and whose re-election as leader of the EU-wide Party of European Socialists she declined to attend.
At the BSP January 26 congress, the party’s platform for the European Parliament elections will be adopted, the party said.
Source:
https://sofiaglobe.com/2019/01/04/bulgarias-major-political-parties-begin-preparations-for-2019-european-parliament-municipal-elections/