“We were all waiting to see the candidate of GERB. A second round of the elections is expected in Sofia. What we see is a general profile of a candidate who will expand the electoral support for GERB”. This was commented by Dimitar Ganev from Research Center “Trend” on Nova News, minutes after GERB registered the candidacy of Hekimyan as a candidate for mayor of Sofia.
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“With a rather party candidate, support from other political forces can hardly be counted on. The two largest electorates that will not have a representative in the second round will be BSP and Vazrazhdane,” the political scientist believes.
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According to him, PP-DB and GERB-SDS want to attract more voters with a non-party figure.
“His professional path brings him a big positive, but also a liability. It gives him a complete recognition among people, which is important for any candidate. The public should not yet get to know him. The liability is that questions will be asked within of the campaign regarding how a television director could be nominated all of a sudden. That is, were there relations between the political party and the media during these years. The answers to these questions are yet to be heard,” said Dimitar Ganev.
The search for a candidate who is not close to the GERB party candidates is not a surprise, said Marcela Abrasheva, a sociologist from the Kantar agency. Both she and Ganev were adamant that the main competitors in the upcoming local vote are Anton Hekimyan (GERB-SDS) and Vasil Terziev (PP-DB), added Ganev.
“Let the people of Sofia say whether Mr. Hekimyan is removed from GERB. This is not the first candidacy that aims to be broad, consensual, remote. Let’s see how the people will react in a poll”, said Abrasheva and added that the campaign is important because the number of people who are still undecided about who to vote for is growing. “There is a hunger for highly competent and technocratic governance,” she added.
