Former Presidents and their parties: making post-mandate carriers. Insights from Bulgaria and Romania

This article aims to analyse the 'pathways from power' of the East-Central European Presidents. The paper provides an alternative insight on the presidential impact on party politics. The new researches on the relationship between Presidents and party organisations suggest a close relationship between presidential activism and party leadership structures. Nearly all the post-communist Presidents were, in their own way, highly influential in shaping public and electoral agenda, in supporting (counter) reforms or in (de) selecting political leaders. However, the post-mandate Presidential trajectories remain terra incognita. To what extent do former Presidents succeed to reform or reshape their party organisations? Under what circumstances such continuity of practices emerges? The rationale for this quest is the hypothesis that the former Presidents' political activism in what concerns the internal party life might provide additional information concerning the means through which the presidential powers are exercised in post-communist democracies. The paper questions the issue of whether the presidential influence is solely dependent on the timing of the elections (e.g. the opportunity for running for a new term is a major variable in explaining the potential influence of an incumbent President over his/her party of origins) or conversely, some Presidents succeed to impact on party anatomies and the decision-making processes well after the completion of their mandates. Are there any reasons to support the idea of a relationship between the level of party institutionalization and the Presidents' ability to capture and continuously reshape party organizations? And if so, what are the means through which most of the post-communist former Presidents succeeded to rule over their parties of origin? Our analysis uses qualitative content analysis of official statements, biographies, public discourses, etc. The paper provides an in-depth examination of the role of former presidents in shaping the organization of their parties and how they impact upon the party's electoral performance and parliamentary behaviour.