- Before the elections in April, he decided to meet with journalists and announced that he would pay the fines for not submitting declarations
- The referendum for a presidential republic was not consulted with Rumen Radev
- ITN discovered foreign sociologists who today give them 8.5% and leave DPS and Yanev out of parliament
More than 3 years after his last appearance in the public space, Slavi Trifonov lifted the curtain and stood in front of the media. Literally. This happened at a briefing organized by his party “There is such a people” in one of the studios of his party TV 7/8.
Invitations were sent to the media for the meeting, and the statement of the politician, a former show host, was broadcast live on Facebook and on television.
Slavi welcomed the journalists seated and surrounded by his most faithful screenwriters and former deputies from ITN Toshko Yordanov, Stanislav Balabanov and Ivaylo Valchev.
Missing was Iva Miteva, who reached the top post in the state as an ITN deputy – head of the parliament, but some time ago she officially retired from party life. But next to Slavi sat a new female face for the party – the journalist Katya Ilieva.
Clad in a black t-shirt and leather jacket, Slavi looked visibly relaxed, though most of the time he kept a firm grip on the table with both hands. He looked focused, hardly allowing himself to smile and maintaining his typical serious, even frowning expression with narrowed eyes as he stared at the journalists.
The press conference lasted a little over an hour and no one around Trifonov allowed himself to get up. And when it was over, a curtain was drawn, which
put an end to the show
But speculations began about the showman’s state of health. Why a curtain? Does it get hard or is it just a spectacular scenario?
The last time Trifonov was seen live was during his first attempt to establish the No Such a State party on October 5, 2019 in Sofia (later reorganized as Ima Talik Narod). Journalists were not invited then, and outside Trifonov did not stop to answer their questions.
His next appearance was at the start of the 45th NA – the only one in which he was a deputy. However, this was during the coronavirus pandemic and Trifonov did not appear in the parliament, but together with several other deputies took the oath remotely, which was broadcast live on the video wall in the plenary hall. Again, there was a wide discussion on social networks whether and how he managed to stand up.
Later in June of the same year 2021, it was announced that Slavi would participate in a national meeting with students in Plovdiv. Despite serious advertising, he did not appear and was introduced by Iva Miteva. Last year, the politician gave a single interview – about Darik, which, however, took place on his territory, again in the studio of 7/8 TV.
All other messages are on Facebook, live or recorded “from the sofa”.
Even most of his fellow party members do not see eye to eye with him. “I haven’t seen Trifonov since I became a minister. Some of us haven’t seen him for more than a year”, admitted the former sports minister Radostin Vasilev, but only when ITN pulled his own from the “Petkov” office and he saw where the “Change” was. The same was shared by some of the ITN deputies in the previous parliaments.
The most important thing that should have reached people from this one-hour show was that Trifonov’s referendum on a presidential republic has nothing to do with President Rumen Radev.
I haven’t seen him. Since he’s been president, I may have seen each other once, but it was a long time ago. I haven’t talked to him and we haven’t had any conversations about this idea that we have, explained Trifonov. After that
merge it with the one for majority elections,
for which he also organized a referendum in 2016: It’s a long-standing idea of ours that concerns our notion of majoritarian elections, and a presidential republic, in my opinion, is the highest form of having a majoritarian election.. He is ignorant of this purpose of ours, he is taking the presidency, and we are taking what we decide is right.
In the presidential elections in 2021, Trifonov’s party supported General Radev for a second term. Yesterday, however, Trifonov never answered who is the appropriate figure at the head of a presidential republic today. The question of exactly what ITN’s vision for such a thing remained without a clear answer. The initiative committee will try to collect 400,000 signatures in order to oblige the National Assembly to schedule the referendum.
For reference, only 96,071 votes were received by the ITN in the November election. However, Trifonov found no connection between his performance in the elections and the referendum. Otherwise, these votes give 3.83% of the vote – 6 times less than their result in the summer of 2021, when ITN won the elections.
The change in ITN results is related to unmet expectations that people had for what they assigned us.explained Trifonov.
ITN will not enter into preliminary coalitions for the upcoming elections. And in general, I don’t like this with the coalition in advance. There won’t be one, it’s impossible, he stated. He has not yet decided whether to be part of the lists.
However, it became clear that he expects his party to enter the parliament this time and even declared that he trusts the “professionals” – a foreign sociological agency that prepared a study commissioned by ITN. According to him, they would win 8.5% of the vote if he were there now, and DPS and Bulgarian Rise, which currently have a total of 48 deputies, would remain outside the parliament. However, the survey did not cover the vote from abroad.
Slavi evaded a clear answer as to why ITN now receives its entire party subsidy, after fighting for it to become just BGN 1 per vote, and when the National Assembly rejected this, gave up its BGN 7 on top. After we will submit declarations to KPCONPI, then we will receive the entire subsidy, added Toshko Yordanov. Already on Wednesday, Slavi announced that he would pay the fines and submit his declaration.
