Borisov: Presidential Election Success Proves Bulgaria's Fiscal Prowess

The results from the first round of the presidential and local elections in Bulgaria on Sunday have been interpreted as a great success by the government of Boyko Borisov and the rightist GERB party.

"Today's vote is a vote of confidence for the Bulgarian government, and all of our opponents must realize that," declared Deputy PM and Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, after on Sunday GERB party's bidder Rosen Plevneliev won the greatest number of votes in the presidential elections to make it to the run-off, while the GERB bidders in Sofia, Burgas, Dobrich and Gabrovo won their mayoral seats in the first round.

According to Tsvetanov, the keywords in the campaign of the GERB party are "tolerance, respect, pragmaticism."

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov in particular interpreted the election results as a major sign that people in Bulgaria realized the need to keep up the conservative fiscal policy of his government.

"In a time of a very severe financial crisis entire countries seeking ways to default on their debts, and we in Bulgaria have managed to keep up the lowest tax burden I the EU, we brought down our budget deficit," the PM stated.

"The international credit rating agencies who are literally smashing entire states, institutions, banks increased Bulgaria's credit rating. The Bulgarians have comprehended that we need to spend as much as we make so that our future generations can live as real Europeans," he added.

He explained the victories of GERB’s incumbent candidates in Sofia and Burgas with the massive number of public works and EU funded projects implemented in these cities by the mayoral offices.

“Only in a few years in Sofia we completed 32 km of metro tunnels, the southern arc of the beltway, the Brussels bridge, the Lyulin Highway, the National Sports Arena, over 40 kindergartens. In Burgas, we built the road junction, it looks as an European seaside city now,” the PM said at the election night news conference.

Borisov who came to the news conference straight from the European Council meeting in Brussels contrasted the situation in Bulgaria with what is in his words a raging financial and economic crisis in Europe.

“Europe is in a very, very severe state. The fact that we are gathering again on Wednesday in Brussels comes to show there are a lot of issues to be resolved. It helps us a great deal that we in Bulgaria did not succumb to populism. Now we need to be united as a nation because we will have a huge problem in the coming years,” the PM said.

In a blitz comment earlier, he noted that he is pleasantly surprised by the election results because the GERB party technically put up a very “insipid” and “modest” campaign for its candidates for presidential and local authority offices.