Bozhidar Bozhanov: “We Will Be in Opposition, Because That Is What the Bulgarian Voters Decided.”

“We will be the opposition, because that is what the Bulgarian voters have decided," Bozhidar Bojanov, co-chairman of "Yes, Bulgaria" told BNT "More from the Day" on April 22.

We are an opposition—not a noisy one, not a petty one, but one that tries to keep things on the right course. Because when you have an absolute majority, the temptation to abuse power, to take over a captured state and use its instruments—even supposedly for good purposes—is very strong.

The role of the opposition is to ensure that we do not move from the Peevski–Borisov model to another, slightly modified model, but to truly become a rule-of-law state with the supremacy of law, where political discussions are truly about policy, not about who holds what in folders and compromising material.”

He said that the coalition “We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” will participate in the election of a new Supreme Judicial Council and the Inspectorate, stressing the need for checks on the assets of Borislav Sarafov and other prosecutors.

Bozhanov also announced that they will submit a draft Law on the Judiciary on the first day of the new parliament in order to strengthen guarantees that appointed officials will be people of integrity.

“We will submit a Law on the Judiciary to amend the rules on the very first day, so that there are stronger guarantees that the people appointed there will not turn out to be the next, in quotation marks, ‘lice’, whose resignation we have already demanded from the Supreme Judicial Council. But rather people with morality and integrity, who will elect a new Prosecutor General who will not be Sarafov or Geshev, but someone who acts in the name of the law,” said Bozhidar Bozhanov.

Commenting on the resignation of Sarafov, he said it came as a result of voter pressure, arguing that citizens had rejected the previous political model and influenced institutional change through the election results.

“Because Sarafov held this post not by the will of the law—since today he is an unlawful Prosecutor General—not by the will of the court, because the court said he is not a lawful Prosecutor General. He remained there solely by the will of Delyan Peevski and his influence over various institutions.

Voters gave 160 mandates to parties outside GERB and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which had sustained the previous model. In this sense, citizens have driven Sarafov out.”

On the results of the 19 April elections, Bozhidar Bozhanov added that “We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” were the only parties in the current parliamentary composition to increase their result—by around 60,000 votes—but, he noted, they had apparently not managed to convince voters that they could successfully dismantle the Borisov–Peevski model.

He also pointed to internal issues within the coalition, including differing colours and slogans among the formations, as well as the way electoral lists were arranged.

Bozhanov said:

“A perception remains, which voters have registered, that we are not the ones they can trust. We need to improve that. We need to find common ground and strengthen it. For example, we still do not have a coalition agreement. One that regulates decision-making processes and other parameters, joint headquarters, and so on. That, perhaps, is the first step towards bringing more coherence into the coalition.”