Boyko Borisov

Prime Minister of Bulgaria

Incumbent

Assumed office 27 July 2009

President Georgi Parvanov

Deputy Simeon Djankov Tsvetan Tsvetanov

Preceded by Sergei Stanishev

Mayor of Sofia

In office8 November 2005 – 27 July 2009

Preceded by Stefan Sofiyanski

Succeeded by Yordanka Fandakova

Chief Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior

In office 24 July 2001 – 8 November 2005

Born 13 June 1959 (age 50) Bankya, Bulgaria

Political party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (2006–present)

Other political
affiliations National Movement Simeon II (in 2005)

Spouse(s) Stela Borisova (Divorced)

Domestic partner Tsvetelina Borislavova

Religion Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Boyko Metodiev Borisov born 13 June 1959 is the current Prime Minister of Bulgaria. He is a former mayor of Sofia, a post he had held from 8 November 2005 until his election as Prime Minister.
After his party, GERB, decisively won the 2009 Bulgarian parliamentary election in early July, Borisov became Bulgaria’s 50th Prime Minister[1][2] on 27 July 2009.

Biography

Chief Secretary and Mayor of Sofia
Borisov was born in 1959 in Bankya (then a village, today a town part of greater Sofia) to Ministry of Internal Affairs official Metodi Borisov and elementary school teacher Veneta Borisova. Between 1982 and 1990, he assumed different positions in the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a firefighter and later as a professor at the Police Academy in Sofia.[3] As a National Security Office member, Borisov took part in the protection of crops and haylofts during the name-changing campaign towards ethnic Turks in the 1980s.[4] He quit the Ministry in 1990. In 1991 he founded a private security company, Ipon-1, and later guarded personalities like Todor Zhivkov and Simeon II. Borisov has been actively engaged in karate since 1980, serving as the coach of the Bulgarian national team and a referee of international matches.
Borisov is not currently married, but lives with Tsvetelina Borislavova, head of the Economic and Investment Bank. Borisov has a daughter, Veneta, from his former marriage to the physician Stela. Borisov also has a sister, Krasimira Ivanova. Borisov’s grandfather was executed in the wake of the Bulgarian coup d’état of 1944, which had a negative influence on his studies and career in socialist times (pre-1989).[3]
Boyko Borisov was the Chief Secretary of the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior between 2001 and 2005, with the rank of General.[5][6][7][8][9][10] In the 2005 parliamentary elections he was candidate for member of Parliament for the National Movement Simeon II, and was elected in two regions but decided to retain his job as Chief Secretary of the Ministry. Later that year he resigned from this post, and instead participated in and won the elections for mayor of Sofia, where he replaced Stefan Sofiyanski.
Borisov founded a new political party, GERB in 2006 (in English Coat of Arms, while also being an acronym for “Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria”). GERB won the first Bulgarian European Parliament elections on 20 May 2007, despite low poll attendance (28.6%),[11] which prompted Borisov to voice his wish for early parliamentary elections. Borisov is not the official leader of GERB, but is considered as an “informal leader”,[12] while the formal one is Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who served under Borisov at the Ministry of Interior, and later as a vice-mayor of Sofia.
Prime Minister of Bulgaria
Borisov’s party GERB also decisively won the parliamentary election on 5 July 2009 by collecting 39.71% of the popular vote and 116 of the 240 seats in parliament.[13][14] Borisov has announced that he will be the party’s choice as the 50th Prime Minister of Bulgaria in what is expected to be a GERB-dominated centre-right government.[1][2]

Karate

Borisov has been actively participating in Karate championships since 1978. He currently has 7th dan black belt in karate and is the chairman of the Bulgarian Karate Federation. Borisov has also been a coach for the Bulgarian national karate team for many years as well as an international karate referee.

Controversy

Borisov, on 6 February 2009, speaking in Chicago, told Bulgarian expatriates that the human material and the basis of Bulgarian population at the moment include one million Roma, 700,000 Turks and 2.5 million retirees. He added that the human material that they are left with as voters and as a pool for recruiting staff is really not that big, as half a million people have left Bulgaria.[15][16][17][18] Vice-president of the Party of European Socialists, Jan Marinus Wiersma, accused Borisov of referring “to the Turks, Roma and pensioners in Bulgaria as “bad human material”", and claimed that GERB “has already crossed the invisible line between right wing populism and extremism.”[19]
Borisov has denied the socialists’ accusations that he used the phrase “bad human material”. In turn, he has accused the Bulgarian Socialist Party of spreading lies and attempting to discredit him.[20] Borisov stated in a meeting with NGOs on 5 March 2009 that he intends to include representatives of the Roma ethnicity in all levels of government, including a potential minister,[21] and has reached out to offer inclusivity to Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish population.[4]

Notes