Zafirov: Every Next Government Needs a New Vision, Developed in Partnership

16.01.2026 | Domestic policy

Atanas Zafirov, outgoing Deputy Prime Minister and leader of BSP, shared reflections on the past year of governance and pointed out the need for a new vision for the next governments, developed in partnership. Zafirov also criticized some "comrades on the left" who were part of the mistakes.

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Each subsequent government will need a new vision, developed jointly, stated the outgoing Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the BSP, Atanas Zafirov, in a Facebook post.

According to Zafirov, elections are coming, which have become the norm, and then – a new search for stable governance, which, alas, has become something abnormal. 

Let's see who will have the character to go through this as well, finally realizing that the world is different, the alliances are different, that society is different, that technologies are different, and that each subsequent government will need a new vision, developed jointly, adds the leader of the BSP.

The post is on the occasion of January 16 – a year ago on this date the government was formed. Zafirov defines what happened as "an unprecedented demonstration in Bulgaria of abandoning party ego and proposing a new, joint political formula, uniting the ununitable around specific priorities in the name of our state".

"It was with this government that Bulgaria entered the Eurozone. It was this government that tackled solving the water crisis, created not because of natural deficits, but because of a deficit of managerial know-how for decades. It was this government that unblocked large infrastructure projects and "saved" the municipalities from financial collapse, managed to return 5 billion leva under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. But these are invisible mechanisms, hidden from the eyes of society, driving normality in the state", Zafirov also writes.

Our main mistake was that "BSP-United Left" in this government worked quietly and consistently, without unnecessary overexposure of its work by departments, adds the leader of the socialists. He comments that it was the BSP that preserved the stability between the institutions in the so-called war in the triangle of power – between the president and the partners in the coalition. "Today, with an open face, I can state that in none of the important topics – about the idea of Bulgaria and about the place of Bulgaria, do we have disagreements with the president. And this is more important than everyday life issues", writes Atanas Zafirov.

The morality of the BSP is undeniable….I am not afraid to look into the eyes of every one of our members, sympathizers, left-thinking people and citizens and say – we tried to stop the crisis in the state and restore normality, he adds.

With great pain, I share that now the loudest critics of the mistakes are those comrades on the left who were part of these mistakes, part of the party elite – MPs, chairmen, members of the National Assembly, who liked their position of majority and ruling, writes Zafirov.

He adds that it was the BSP leadership that reacted when the full Swiss rule for the indexation of pensions could have been abolished, as well as that it prevented the sale of the equipment of the Belene NPP, despite a decision already taken, they managed to fill the "gap" left by Ninova between the BSP and the president, as well as to save the party from bankruptcy, again bequeathed by Ninova. How is this achieved? With the opposite of a soft character…, writes Zafirov.

Thank you to my colleagues from the joint government for trying to work united in the name of Bulgaria. Probably time was not enough for us, probably our parties inside are not ready for a leadership compromise, probably the ego is too much, adds the leader of "BSP-United Left".