As the story goes, it was some months before Bulgaria’s 2011 presidential elections that Boiko Borissov invited Rossen Plevneliev to join him in his official car after a ribbon-cutting ceremony because there was something Borissov wanted to discuss with him.
At the time, Borissov was prime minister and Plevneliev his regional development and public works minister and going by the opinion polls of the time, Plevneliev – recruited by Borissov to government from a successful private sector career – the most popular member of the cabinet.
Borissov told Plevneliev that he wanted him to be the candidate of Borissov’s centre-right GERB party in the presidential elections. Reluctant at first, Plevneliev eventually agreed, and went on to a score a second-round victory over his rival, Ivailo Kalfin, the MEP and former foreign minister who had been nominated by the socialist party.
With Plevneliev in office as head of state from January 2012, the socialists portrayed him as part of GERB’s all-encompassing co
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