Four days after outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stansihev refused to step down as leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) for finishing second to Boiko Borissov's GERB party in the July 5 general election, voices within  the BSP started asking for his resignation.

One of the first to do that was BSP municipal councilor in Sofia Georgi Kadiev, one of the young faces in the party, who several years ago resigned as deputy finance minister after disagreeing with the policies of outgoing finance minister Plamen Oresharski.

Talking on terrestrial private broadcaster bTV on July 8, Kadiev, who lost the elections as BSP majoritarian candidate in Sofia, said: "If I was in Stanishev's shoes, I would have submitted my resignation".

"What we are facing here is a heavy loss for the BSP and the party is practically in knock-down," he said. The Socialists were second with 17.7 per cent of the vote, while GERB got 39.7 per cent.

The BSP needed new faces, Kadiev said and gave the party leadership a deadline until August 1 to answer several big questions. On that date every year, the BSP holds its annual nationwide gathering in the Stara Planina mountain range at Bouzdloudja peak. The place holds a special place in the party's more than 100 year-long history.

"By August 1 we need to known the answers to the questions of who will take the responsibility for the heavy elections loss, what will be our relationship with current coalition partner the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) from now on and what would be our relationship with President Georgi Purvanov". Purvanov was leader of the BSP until 2001, when he won his first term as president and had to resign his membership in the party.

"If we don't have an alternative to Stanishev as a leader than we have to admit that the BSP is a leader's party (meaning that everything is concentrated on the irreplaceable leader). If that's the case, than we have to admit it and keep Stanishev. We can't go to Bouzdloudja and not know if our current leader will continue as such," Kadiev said.

He also said that the BSP had to distance itself not from the MRF, but from MRF leader Ahmed Dogan, whose inflamatory statements - a week ahead of elections Dogan said that he was the instrument of power in Bulgaria who directed the money flows - would be punished by voters.

On July 9, more criticism against BSP current policies came from another prominent party figure, Mladen Chervenyakov, who also failed to win a seat in Parliament.

Talking to bTV, he said that the election loss had came not so much because of the negative elections campaign but more because of the party overall policy. The last-minute changes to the elections legislation and the negative campaign only added to the crisis of BSP policy.

"What has to be noted is that this policy in the past 10 years can be qualified as policy of doing nothing, of conformism and as surviving in power at any cost," he said. Current BSP leader Stanishev was elected in December 2001.

This policy has led to serious consequence such as "collapse of the party structures, lack of clear principles and moral in the internal party life, decisions of the central bodies of the party based on vague criteria and a complete lack of discussion within the party".

The BSP also lacked a vision on how to develop Bulgaria as a European Union member, he said. "BSP's biggest problem is that during all these years of transition from communism to democracy it failed to initiate a single idea that has led to a change in the society," Chervenyakov said.

The party's agenda as an opposition was to first solve its internal problems. This included the resignation of the party executive bureau and scheduling a special party congress that will elect the new leader. "All candidates for the post must present their programmes before the congress so that there can be a discussion on their platforms," he said.