Maxim Behar for NOVA TV (Day 2): The Most Important Thing is for Bulgaria to Succeed!

Maxim Behar is one of the weekly commentators on the show "Intersection Point" on NOVA TV with host Mihail Dyuzev, in which he will comment on the twists and turns in the double elections for President and Parliament in Bulgaria, election campaigns, mistakes by candidates and the right approaches to the formation of a successful government.


Host: Hello Bulgaria, wherever you are. You are with "Intersection" - the show in which news first becomes a comment. Following Sunday's election, which brought many surprises, the news is breaking more and more often. Another party leader resigned today - Cornelia Ninova announced that she takes responsibility for the disastrous performance of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). The party, I recall, remained 4th and ranked after the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). The resignation will be voted on in congress during January of next year. And again today, it became clear that the debate between the presidential candidates Rumen Radev and Anastas Gerdjikov will be held Thursday at 8 pm on the Bulgarian National Television (BNT). We are now in the studio of "Intersection Point" with our weekly analysts: political scientist Teodora Yovcheva, PR expert Maxim Behar and fellow TV presenter Ivo Tanev. Here we go.

"We have to create a Bulgarian political dream team, we are entering into talks today." This was stated this morning to NOVA by the co-chairman of the political party "We continue the change" Kiril Petkov. Only a few months ago, media personality turned politician Slavi Trifonov presented his A-team of experts in the project “There is such a people” for the government. Today, what kind of A-team can be formed, and do you think the parties are ready to work together? Maxim Behar will start first.

Maxim Behar: What Kiril Petkov (leader of "We continue the change") says is what 9 out of 10 people in Bulgaria think and it is the most logical and normal thing to happen in 2021. There have been several attempts, now indeed, to make some expert cabinets after the last and past elections. All of them were political and most of the people who were introduced to us, especially in Slavi's office, except for my friend Niki Vassilev, entered this matter for the first time. We have the potential to make an A-team, we have the potential to play in the first league of Europe, Bulgaria is a country full of young, intelligent, capable, ambitious, and well-motivated people. You take them out, put these people on the table, by the way, the interview was very valuable, and congratulations to the colleagues from the morning blog on NOVA TV, should we judge them on CVs - I as a person who constantly interviews and hires people know that this is very much the same, but the fact is that we have the full potential to make A-teams and enter the Premier European Political league. A small country, 7 million, a country where people can talk to each other very quickly, understand each other and in the end, we are at the bottom, nowhere.

You know that the coalition agreement in Germany is 800 pages, we do not need those 800 pages. We need transparency, quick solutions. I have always professed the principle that even the worst decision is better than the one not taken. Quick decision, transparency, ethics, and what Kiril Petkov says, my God, there is no person in Bulgaria who looks at him and does not like him and does not say "Yes, that's exactly what we need." We will check whether the leaders are comfortable with a transparent government, I am sure that there are people inside the parties and especially voters who are thinking to themselves that this has been going on for too long.

Host: Let us recall that the leaders have already resigned.

Maxim Behar: Bulgaria is at a very important stage in the so-called transition. We know this mantra - the transition is over, the king has come to power, the transition is over, another has come, the transition is over. No, the transition will continue for many years to come. But the most important thing is that we have never had a coalition of this type, a coalition with many political parties, a coalition that must lead Bulgaria out of a deep quagmire. In the field of healthcare, in business, in investment, in science, and that is why we need a completely different type of government.

We need officials with a completely different mindset, with a completely different outlook, we need visionaries who don't even have to count the coalitions of two ministers for you, four for you - this was basically the triple coalition. The only one we remember most vividly in our recent lives. Although Borissov also had several coalitions, they were not so public and so announced. That's why I think that all politicians should calm down, forget their ego, not just their ego, go down to earth and say to themselves, "What's most important? The success of Bulgaria" and to act on their words.

Host: It is very strange and interesting how we will achieve what Kiril Petkov said this morning while not picking up the phone to anybody.

Maxim Behar: No, let him pick up his phone, but when he sees what they want- let him hang up. He picks up the phone. I am optimistic and I think it will happen. We are changing the system, for example, we are stopping the centralized economy and launching the market. We had to do that in 1991-92, or we are removing the Warsaw Pact, we are becoming a member of NATO, and this is over. By transition, I mean something completely different - the development of Bulgaria. The transition from what the past year brought into this year betters. And this is actually the transition, development - yes. We have done this for a long time, we have made geopolitical, strategic decisions.

Host: If elected for a second term, President Rumen Radev is ready to present the draft amendments to the constitution he spoke of more than a year ago. Among the proposed changes is to introduce the possibility of an individual constitutional complaint, which goes through changes in the Basic Law and the Law on the Constitutional Court. Against the background of the topic of the constitution today, the BSP leader resigned. However, she accused government spokesman Anton Kutev and members of Radev's initiative committee of meddling in the BSP's internal affairs by raising the issue of her resignation. Does Ninova differ from Radev just before the second round of the presidential election?

Maxim Behar: The opinion of Cornelia Ninova about the presidential race does not matter, it does not matter at all. What do you think, these people who are members of the BSP or sympathizers do not see how they are going down and not just in the elections, in general- the activity, the management, the presentation to the public, of course, these people, if they want to vote for Rumen Radev will vote for him, if they want Anastas Gerdjikov they will go there and it doesn't matter.

Host: The question is, will they go to the polls?

Maxim Behar: It was time the BSP, I say it as a bystander, I do not know Ms. Ninova, I have never seen her, it was time for the BSP to have new leadership with even younger people and if there really is a leftist idea or a social-democratic idea like in many European countries it has to be represented by young, intelligent people with a vision of how to move forward and by the way there are many such people in the BSP, some of them I know. May she be (Ninova) well and healthy, may she go do business or to retire or whatever she wants to do, but nevertheless a strong opposition from the left in Bulgaria is needed. As in any developed European democracy, we hope it will happen. Regarding the Constitution, none of us is an expert or a specialist to say whether we should have an individual constitutional complaint or not. However, I believe that there should be a debate in society, the president should know what his ideas are, and we should see what the opposition thinks. Maybe the boys from "We Continue the Change" read that they are called "the ashes", maybe "the ashes" have other, novel ideas, additional experience, or can bring it from somewhere. It seems to me that 240 deputies in the Bulgarian Parliament are one too many, if they become 100, it will be possible to speak much more quickly, talk to fewer people, make decisions faster and it will be harder to enter parliament. The struggle will be greater, the competition will be greater. I know that this was one of the ideas of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who one day appeared and shared his concept for a change in the constitution. It seems to me that this will be a pragmatic decision. We must first leave it to the lawyers, secondly to the specialists, and thirdly to the Bulgarian people to hear as many opinions as possible. The word is modern, there must be a modern left party. The word is modern and no matter young or old, the question is in the vision and the question is in what they tell their supporters, how they behave in society, this is super important. Now, I do not want to make a comparison with what we saw with Kiril Petkov, but these are two different galaxies. The way of speaking, the way of presenting, the arguments. Again, the greatest respect is for the BSP to elect another chairman to consolidate the people around him or her, to take their own path.

Host: Our third topic today: Sofia City Court stopped the registration of the decisions of the last congress of the Bulgarian Football Union in October, which re-elected Borislav Mihailov. Let's see more. The news comes amid yesterday's defeat to the Swiss national football team. The match ended with 4 goals in our goal and despite some hopes from the summer for better performance, we will still not play in a big championship. As the year began for the national team, it ended - with defeat. On top of that, the prosecutor's office came in and checked what was happening at the national football headquarters. Is it time for a change not only in politics but in football as well?

Maxim Behar: You know, I haven’t seen the nation happier since 1994, the summer of '94. Then, there was a song ‘Happy nation’ by Ace of Base, I played this song non-stop in the car because I saw all these people smiling, cheerful, energetic. Finally, we had proven something. I return to the first topic, Bulgaria is full of young, intelligent, well-educated, ambitious, motivated people and suddenly, firstly, I want to differentiate between the Bulgarian Football Union and Bulgarian football, a Chinese wall in my opinion. This farce we watched, I watched the whole Congress of the Bulgarian Football Union without knowing anything about football, having no experience, without playing football, purely from the point of view of my profession- public relations I wanted to see what will happen, how it will be presented. The fact that they expelled the journalists, put a screen in front of them, there is no sound on this screen, and they forbade to broadcast it live. I watched it from Berbatov's mobile phone, he broadcast it on Facebook. And all these nonsenses in the whole story, it was such an absurdity and such an incredible drama that it is in 2021. Don't let the journalists in, don't give them a chance to talk. And the other things, they haven't presented the minutes yet ... why don't you present the minutes. Have a meeting, make it public, sign it, post it on social media. This means that there is something hidden covered, that there is something wrong. And this affects the football team probably to one degree or another. It affects the whole country, probably 3-4 million people in Bulgaria tremble for football, love football, want to have good national football. The young boys run around the schools, the gyms, the playgrounds between the blocks, kick a ball - they want idols, at the moment there is no idol to have.

As a student I played football in Slavia Sofia, our coach was Stalamanov, who passed away a month ago. We the children in Slavia's football team, called him Shami, the only Shami, and as he walked down the corridor, we froze with respect, amazement, stress, not to be scolded by all this. There are no idols in Bulgarian football, but all this is a consequence of all this chaos in the very management of football in Bulgaria. And it is very unfortunate that this is happening, how can in 2021, you hold a congress that is not transparent, that is not broadcast directly, in which journalists do not talk to people in which there is no freedom for anyone to become...there is no such congress simply. It was like a Hitchcock movie that I watched.

We can return to the first topic, by the way, of the A-team. Today I saw photos of Berbatov on social networks regarding his statement about the fact that the court does not register the new leadership and when I watched the interview of Kiril Petkov this morning and said to myself, here is the A-team. I want this man to be the Minister of Sports, part of the A-team

Host: Yes, this is the comparison he made between "We continue the change" and the people around Berbatov.

Maxim Behar: We can state in front of the people who will gather the A-team of Bulgaria that there is an athlete, a football player who thinks about Bulgaria, who performs very well and is super popular abroad. Such a Minister of Sports will do a great job.

Host: Yes, but he seems to be aiming for what he considers to be the most appropriate professional development, namely football management.

Maxim Behar: Also. Also, there are probably other athletes who could do the job. The position must be occupied by a sports persona, one who understands and has experience. Yes, the A-team must be a team of managers.

Host: Okay, thank you. Very interesting comments today. I'm waiting for you in the studio of "Intersection Point" tomorrow immediately after the news at 4 p.m.

Watch the full video here.