Bulgaria's Ex-PM Stanishev: Borisov Had 100 Days of Lies, Failures

Bulgaria’s former Prime Minister, Socialist Party leader Sergey Stanishev, has described the first 100 days in office of his successor, Boyko Borisov, as three months of lies and failures.

“The state is being governed from a TV screen, with the buttons of a mobile phone by one single person,” Stanishev said regarding the style of Borisov. He spoke after the first meeting of the new Executive Bureau of BSP.

“The 100 days of the government are 100 days of telling lies, on a mass scale, every single day. The greatest lie is about the plunder of the state,” the ex-PM said explaining that the new government inherited from his cabinet twice larger fiscal reserve than it had received in 2005.

Stanishev pointed out that the government was not just of the GERB party but of GERB and the nationalist Ataka party with fluctuating support from the rightist Blue Coalition and the conservative RZS party.

He also stressed that contrary to what the GERB party had promised, its cabinet had not updated the 2009 state budget, and was probably going to get a bailout loan from the IMF; it was also not going to reduce the social security payments by 5%, or to introduce lower VAT on pharmaceuticals.

According to the Socialist leader, the Borisov government is failing its first important test: the emerging swine flu epidemic. He emphasized the less money for health care in the 2010 budget (BGN 450 M less than in 2009), and a “collapse” in the social sphere since the Labor Ministry’s budget was one-third smaller, while the unemployment was on the rise.

“The 2010 state budget will be a budget of impoverishment, unemployment, and social insecurity,” Stanishev said.

Regarding the scandalous revelations that his Finance Minister Oresharski and BNB Governor Iskrov made a secret deal to deposit part of the fiscal reserve into commercial banks, Stanishev said the former government prevented bank bankruptcies and loss of savings in a time of a raging financial crisis.

In his words, the former cabinet sought no adventures and worked in close cooperation with the Central Bank. He also said current Finance Minister Djankov was not supposed to make public classified information.

Stanishev also made it clear he was ready to give up his immunity as an MP in order to aid the investigation of the claims that he leaked or hid top secret intelligence reports during his time as Prime Minister.

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