Bulgarian Socialists Challenge PM to Become EPP President

The Bulgarian Socialist Party has retorted to criticisms against its leader Sergey Stanishev issued by ruling center-right GERB party Saturday.

"PM Boyko Borisov is blindfolded in all the ribbons he has cut for dubious new projects, and cannot see the misery of the people," said the Socialists' youth organization chief Yavor Gechev in a statement.

In the GERB letter, the ruling party claimed that the opposition socialists are falsely ascribing an ever growing poverty to the Bulgarian people at a time it actually prospers.

In his statement however, Gechev said that the Socialists are not surprised at what they see as GERB's blatantly false statements, since they view them as the reaction of people who are in panic at an imminent loss of upcoming general elections.

"What Sergey Stanishev achieved in being elected for President of PES is plainly unthinkable for Boyko Borisov with respect to EPP," quipped Gechev.

GERB had jokingly suggested that Stanishev might be losing his nerve due to the stresses of his new office as PES president.

He added that Borisov and his GERB cabinet have indeed grounds to be afraid of the opinion of the Bulgarian people, who are allegedly becoming ever more exasperate with what he termed an incompetent rule.