Maxim Behar and Svetoslav Malinov discuss on the political situation and moods in the National Assembly in the NOVA NEWS TV program "Your Day"

"Political interests require a person to change his vision and positions. This is a great progress" - said PR expert Maxim Behar

Host: Maxim Behar, Maxim Behar, and Prof. Svetoslav Malinov are here with me. Gentlemen, hello, good to see you. How are you?

Maxim: Super, summer mood!

Host: Summer mood, and looking at what's happening in Parliament, has there been a change in that summer mood, or do things seem more channeled to you? The majority is making its decisions, but the opposition is saying, "We are being ignored even, to quote Toshko Yordanov, for some elementary practices about the allocation of chairmen and deputy chairmen in the committees of parliament"!

Maxim: When I said summer mood, I did not mean a break. I meant fresh and working. Because my company works, we must work with clients. What we see in Parliament, and I agree with Mr. Malinov, is that we do see people working and wanting to do something. We have not seen it for 2-3 years, hopefully it will work out and most of all we see MPs who understand that if they back down or if they stop everything, it will end up being another 2-3 years of inaction. Let us hope there is a good result.

Host: I was thinking about the image, populist talk. Has it calmed down, or on the contrary, is that peak coming that we will get into again? Along with the budget, the Trade Union protests, the forthcoming election campaign, which at some point will turn into an informal election, and I think we will get into that very soon. And what kind of turn of events will that bring us? Mr. Behar, in your opinion, did Zelensky's visit further solidify this "assembly" as the politicians of "GERB-SDS" and "We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria" call it?

Maxim: Probably yes, although the position of those two parties was clear from the beginning - they will not call themselves a coalition, but they will work together. I think it's a big breakthrough that they came together to invite President Zelensky and his few hours in Bulgaria were really, I would call it "The Event of the Year". But the most important change now is that these parties are talking to each other, people in parliament, MPs are talking to each other, and they are doing it directly, not through the media.

Host: But you see what the opposition's response is to this talk. Toshko Yordanov says: "I went inside, I did not restrain myself, I came back out in the hall after I left it to see the face of Kiril Petkov, who arrested Boyko Borisov, and now they will vote for him to become chairman of the foreign affairs committee.".

Maxim: Well, yes. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that, or in the end, political interests require that one changes one's vision, one's positions. I also think it's great progress in the end. We're not some trees to stay limited in our perceptions, positions and never change them. And it will hardly be a revolution if we change our political position. There are more important things: economics, business, foreign policy, war right up to our border. We need these people to work so that some 6-7 million people in Bulgaria live peacefully and better.

Host: We actively talked about how big the image damage will be in the next elections. How much would the voter understand what you are explaining? What is your opinion Mr. Behar?

Maxim: It all comes back to the image. The parties would have suffered much more image damage if they had stayed so firmly in their positions and had a new election with the same results and a new caretaker government. In my view there is no risk of image damage, on the contrary, now the first test will be the local elections in October. But if the voters see that in the end what is happening now works. This is not a coalition, by the way. It's some kind of arrangement, because for a coalition at least there had to be an arrangement. It could have been a one page what we're doing and how we're doing it, a signature and that's it. But let's say it's a formality. Let them work together, God forbid they continue to work together, and good things happen. But the image of the parties will be strengthened and that will be in the local elections, if good things are really happening in Bulgaria, there is absolutely no risk. The most important thing is that they talk among themselves and not through the media, if I go back a year they only talked through the media. And it was a shame for the whole political system, a shame for Bulgaria. I think that there should be these weekly meetings, that there should be leadership meetings, that there should be a statement after them, that they should say what they talked about. And so, they stand side by side more together, so that the voters see that they have serious politicians opposite them who are not meeting in corners of the National Assembly and agreeing on things that are not known to others.

Host: I smiled because it was a big furor when we saw the pictures from the cafeteria of the National Assembly, how they were whining about their governing policies. We had not seen such a thing for a long time, it was a sensation. Many times, the question was asked by us journalists, will there be a government, now we are asking if there will be a rotation? Do you think from today we will get to a rotation and what is the prospect of that, how do you see it?

Maxim: Looking at things from the side, I think we will get to this rotation, the next rotation and God forbid the next rotation. Because at the end of the day, we have politicians who have realized that there are more important things than their internal squabbles, more important things than just sitting and looking at one point and believing in something that they've got in mind. I think that things are going very well, moreover, we really have a war on the border, which makes politicians much more careful and much more united in making good things happen in Bulgaria. And they are happening, I don't believe local elections will change much of what is happening in parliament. Of course, there may be some shocks, but in the end, we are going a better way and that is the way it will be.

Host: Thank you gentlemen for your optimism.

You can watch the whole interview here.