Bulgaria’s prime minister has announced his party’s runner in the presidential elections next year in a bid to divert attention from the economic crisis plaguing the country, analysts have said.

The comments came in response to Boyko Borisov’s statement that his center-right ruling party GERB will nominate Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov to face off current Socialist head of state Georgi Parvanov in the upcoming presidential vote in 2011.

“Boyko Borisov wants to make it clear that he will stay in office until the end of his term as prime minister and is ready to compete with the president,” Genoveva Petrova from Alpha Research polling agency told Dnevnik daily.

According to her Prime Minister Borisov aims to divert the people’s attention from the serious economic problems, which have recently started to undermine his approval ratings, by putting on the agenda his party nominee for the presidential elections.

“The nomination of Tsvetan Tvetanov sends two very important signals to the ruling party’s voters and the justice system,” says Petrova. “The interior minister enjoys the highest rates of approval, preceded only by the prime minister, and he may soon become the one to appoint a large part of the supreme magistrates."

According to Gallup pollster Zhivko Georgiev, who was part of the election campaign of President Parvanov, the nomination of Tsvetan Tsvetanov is not a final decision.

“The news here is that the prime minister will not run for the president’s office, but even that may change in time,” Georgiev commented.

His view is shared by Yurij Aslanov, member of the National Council of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party and an expert from Aphis polling agency.

“The prime minister desperately wants to divert the attention of the public from the country's weak economic growth and the huge budget deficit. The early nomination for a presidential runner is an attempt to quench his government’s panic over its inability to cope with the budget crisis,” Aslanov believes.

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