Sofia, May 11 (BTA) - GERB, the major partner in the outgoing
coalition government, Tuesday opened a key national conference
held by videoconference. The forum elects new members of GERB's
executive and control commissions and votes revisions to the
party's statutes.

Tomislav Donchev and Daniel Mitov are GERB's new deputy leaders,
 replacing Yordanka Fandakova, who is also the Mayor of Sofia,
and Dimiter Nikolov, the Mayor of the Black Sea city of Burgas.
Fandakova and Nikolov will remain members of GERB's Executive
Commission.

GERB leader and outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said that
 he was not withdrawing his trust in Fandakova and Nikolov, but
wanted them to have more time for their cities.

Nominated by Borissov, Donchev and Mitov were elected in a
1,333-1 vote, with three abstentions.

Borissov also said that the election of Donchev and Mitov as
deputy leaders clearly positions GERB as a right-centrist
Euro-Atlantic party. "Our partners are carefully watching and
listening to what is happening," he said when he nominated the
two for the post. Borissov said that thus GERB signals what it
is striving to achieve, "what people and countries the party
wants to emulate".

Mitov said: "In my nomination you have a clear idea where GERB
is headed to and what positions the party will stand for." He
stressed that he has always belonged to the rightist-minded
formations.

Mitov said that during a virtual summit of the heads of State in
 the Bucharest Nine (B9) format held in Bucharest on May 10,
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev signed a declaration condemning
the Russian activities and sabotage acts on the territory of
NATO Member States, "but concealed this from the Bulgarians".
Mitov then asked what was happening in this country, and in what
 direction it was going.

For his part, Donchev said GERB should be the political force
whose work in the coming months should return the political
discussions back to the level of political pragmatism.

GERB's conference is held on the day when President Radev is to
disband the sitting National Assembly elected on April 4, which
failed to form a government, and to announce a caretaker
government along with the date for snap parliamentary elections.
 

At the conference, Borissov said that "two very difficult months
 are ahead of GERB, when the party will be faced with a lot of
money against it coming from oligarchs".

The delegates also voted amendments to GERB's statutes. The
chairperson of the commission working on the amendments, Anna
Alexandrova, summed up the proposed revisions, saying that they
mostly concern changes in the structure of the party bodies
aimed to improve coordination among them.

According to the voted amendments, GERB's Executive Commission
will have 12 members, including a head and two deputy heads.

Changes were voted in GERB's Control Commission. Six sitting
members were relieved from the commission: Dessislava Taneva,
Alexander Nenkov, Emil Radev, Irena Sokolova, Daniela Saveklieva
 and Andrey Novakov.

* * *

GERB was established on December 3, 2006 on the initiative of
then Sofia mayor Boyko Borissov on the basis of an year-old
eponymous association called Citizens for European Development
of Bulgaria, whose acronym GERB means "coat of arms" in
Bulgarian.

The party came in first in the parliamentary elections in 2009,
2013, 2014 and 2017, each time garnering more than 1 million
votes. It has been in power (in coalition with other parties)
since 2009, with a break of about a year.

GERB ran in the April 4 elections with another right-centrist
party, the Union of Democratic Forces, and won 837,671 votes, or
 26.18 per cent, which translated into 75 seats in the 240-seat
National Assembly. NV/ZH