Bulgarian press review, November 16, 2009

Press Review
Sofia, November 16 (BTA)

THE HOME SCENE

Monday's press leads on Sunday's mayoral by-elections in five settlements.

Under the headline "GERB Keeps Control of Capital," "Troud" reports that Education Minister Yordanka Fandakova of GERB became Sofia's first woman mayor. With a record-low voter turnout, 22.5 per cent according to Alpha Research, Fandakova won between 65.6 and 70.3 per cent of the votes according to projection vote tabulations released by polling agencies after the close of the polls. "I am glad I presented GERB befittingly, and I hope to justify the confidence," the winner said after the end of the elections. The Socialists' candidate Georgi Kadiev came in second, with 22.5 to 26.5 per cent of the votes, again according to polling agencies. Twelve per cent of The Blue Coalition electorate in Sofia voted for Fandakova in Sofia on Sunday. Just 2 per cent of the Ataka faithful supported her, as did 1 per cent of the supporters of Order, Lawfulness, Justice, even though they had a candidate of their own.

"High turnout is needed for all elections, but this campaign is not charged with the emotion of the parliamentary race," President Georgi Purvanov said after casting his ballot, quoted by "Pari." As he put it, "every non-voting is a choice of something else." "These elections come a little too much for people," Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borissov commented on the low voter turnout. He noted that in Sofia, with 22 borough mayors from GERB [out of a total of 24] and The Blue Coalition and 35-50 municipal councilors [out of a total of 61], there is no chance of a [municipality] mayor other than GERB's.

GERB Chairman Tsvetan Tsvetanov said shortly after the closing of the polls that Kostadin Shahov of GERB won the mayoral by-election in Vratsa, "Monitor" writes. The Northwestern town reported a recrord-low turnout of 23.05 per cent. The next mayor of Pravets, where 44.65 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots, will be GERB's candidate Nikola Nitov.

According to "Standart News," none of the five mayoral candidates in Razlog (Southwestern Bulgaria) got more than 50 per cent of the votes cast in the town, and the top two vote getters: GERB's Krassimir Gerchev and Blagoi Dounkin, backed by Patriotic Union for Razlog Municipality, will contest a second round of voting next week.

"Novinar" notes that the Village of Beglezh near Pleven (North Central Bulgaria) showed the highest turnout on Sunday, 73 per cent.

A signed comment in "Standart News" finds two obvious conclusions from Sunday's elections. "First, people refuse to play in a game with the score known in advance because they are sick and tired of the feeling that nothing depends on them. Secondly, both the Right and the Left are dominated by political scandals. Against this background, interest in policy tends towards zero, and GERB, with the exception of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, can do practically nothing to attract voters' attention."

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Interviewed for "Troud," Supreme Administrative Court President Konstantin Penchev describes as "a disgraceful event" the unauthorized associations of magistrates with influence trader Krassimir "Krassyo" Georgiev. He argues that this is just "the tip of an iceberg." Penchev does not think that the Supreme Judicial Council is capable of extricating itself from the situation. "Some time ago we were at the other extreme," he says. "We had to reform the judiciary despite the resistance of the judiciary. Now it is the other way round, the judiciary must reform the judiciary by itself! No way, the credibility of the judiciary is so precarious that statehood is in jeopardy. Saving statehood is the business of all three branches of government and of all society which has a stake in this."

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In an interview for "Klassa", Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov says that Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Ahmed Dogan "is lying low" and this ties the Government's hands. That is why Boyko Borissov has cause for worry. According to Rashidov, the MRF will launch a strong aggression after the New Year. He expects that there will be organized ethnic riots then. The crisis will thus be used to destabilize the Government.

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"The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences undoubtedly must meet the new conditions and produce better output," Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said Sunday, quoted by "24 Chassa." His statement was prompted by scientists' angry reaction to a remark by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Simeon Djankov that the Academy was staffed by "feudal oldsters". "There are such people there. But there are also some very good academicians, corresponding members. A large part of them are our friends," the PM noted. However, he agrees with Djankov's view that scientific research should be engaged in at the universities and assured reporters that his words were not insulting.

* * *
National Assembly Health Committee Chairman Luchezar Ivanov told a "24 Chassa" interviewer that, under the revised version of the Health Insurance Act, all 8 per cent of the health insurance contribution will be spent on health instead of setting aside 2 per cent for the reserve. He notes that the earnings of doctors who provide medical services will not be decreased. Hospitals which exist for the sake of existence, however, will be affected. "We will not protect hospitals lacking the necessary equipment and qualified staff which run into debt instead of providing people with adequate services and care," he argues. "The quality of medical services will not deteriorate despite the reduced allocations in the 2010 budget," he promises.

ECONOMY

National Assembly Budget Committee Chair Menda Stoyanova told "Sega" that the 2010 draft budget is "the only possible one." She confirms that this is the first budget in ten years which has to cut spending compared to the previous year. "So far spending has always been increased, and the moot point has been over how to allocate this growth to the various activities. Now the moot point is how much to cut spending." Stoyanova notes that taxation policy in Bulgaria is a policy of low taxes and neutral taxation of all taxpayers. She believes that all reliefs, making holes in the tax system in one form or another, must gradually be abandoned.

Under the heading "Receivables from State Bankrupt Companies," "Troud" reports that the Exchequer's debt to companies has built up to 1,400 million leva, according to Finance Ministry figures. Of these, 450 million leva are most urgent for settlement, Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said. Payments are delayed in order to balance the budget. For this reason, however, some companies may go bankrupt.

"State Plans to Condemn Property without Pay," reads a front-page headline in "Sega." "The owners of properties outside nucleated settlements through which a motorway will run or a project of national importance will be implemented may not get a single lev in compensation. This emerges from draft revisions of the State Property Act, which will go before the Council of Ministers within days. The provisions were drafted by an interdepartmental working group at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works. The idea is to curb the scam of the huge compensations that owners of such properties manage to achieve in court. The compensations may be provided in kind, but owners will no longer have the right to contest their type and amount."

Links to some Bulgarian info websites in English:

· http://www.bta.bg/site/en/indexe.shtml
· http://www.novinite.com/index.php
· http://www.focus-fen.net/

Most discussed topics of the day – November 16, 2009

· A loaded freight train has run over a teenage couple near the town of Brusartsi in Bulgaria’s north-west Montana region, killing the girl (16-year-old) outright and critically injuring the boy (15-year-old). The pair was going through a bad patch together and deliberately laid down on the tracks in front of the train on Sunday evening, according to the police.

· Macedonia is receiving and will keep on receiving Bulgaria's support for its Euro-Atlantic integration, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said emerging from a meeting with his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Gruevski on Monday.
The Bulgarian side insists not to tolerate groups in Bulgaria creating problems, not to aspire to conflicts but to keep the bon ton and avoid the language of hatred, he added.

· Bulgaria's Cabinet will go ahead with plans to deposit small portion of its fiscal reserve with local banks, Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov told Financial Times in an interview published on November 16. About one billion leva, or 12 per cent of the fiscal reserve, would be deposited with Bulgarian subsidiaries of foreign-owned banks in an attempt to lift the economy out of recession, Dyankov said.
“This measure would stimulate the economy by helping bring down interest rates for borrowers (…) and, if required, more liquidity could be made available,” Dyankov was quoted as saying.

· Workers of Sofia's Kremikovtzi steel mill gathered at a protest rally in the square outside the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in central Sofia Monday morning to protest what seems like imminent liquidation of the company. They believe that recovery is a feasible option and want to hear the government's firm position on the recovery plan, said the leader of the influential Podkrepa Labour Confederation, Konstantin Trenchev.
The protest comes about a week after Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov said that Kremikovtzi has become a hollow industrial structure in which many economic partners like the national railway and electricity company were cheated out of their money, and liquidation is the only real alternative for it.