Bulgarian Parliament to adopt special programme of urgent measures as country heads for early elections, President Plevneliev says

The way out of the current crisis is through ahead-of-term elections, Bulgaria’s Consultative Council on National Security, made up of leaders of political parties represented in Parliament along with security ministers and security and intelligence chiefs, agreed on February 26 2013.

Bulgaria is moving towards early elections, and Parliament will adopt a special programme of urgent measures while the first meeting of the “public council” to get input from citizenry on resolving the current crisis will be held on March 1 2013.

This emerged from announcements by President Rossen Plevneliev after a meeting on February 26 2013 of the Consultative Council on National Security.

Responding to a journalist who asked him to name the date of the election, Plevneliev said that he was reserving his right to withhold this for now but it would be known “soon” and would be in the timeframe he spoke of earlier, between the end of April and the middle of May.

Bulgaria customarily holds elections on Sundays. Boiko Borissov’s party GERB has indicated that April 28 and May 5 would be unsuitable because of Orthodox Christian holidays on those days, Palm Sunday and Easter. On February 26, an opposition MP told journalists that the council had discussed recommending holding the national parliamentary election on May 12.

Plevneliev pledged that civil order and the rule of law would be maintained.

He said that the way out of the crisis, resolving the legitimate issues raised in recent nationwide protests, was through ahead-of-term elections to produce a new Parliament.

Pending the dissolution of the current Parliament, it had been agreed by the council, legislation would be adopted on changes to the Energy Act towards reducing the price of electricity and on a moratorium on transactions involving properties on coastal beaches.

Plevneliev criticised Ataka leader Volen Siderov for walking out of the meeting of the council after Siderov’s demand for it to be broadcast was refused. Plevneliev responded at the meeting that the fact that the meetings of the council were closed were in the constitution. At the news conference after the meeting, Plevneliev appealed for people to read and abide by the constitution instead of making “scandal PR”.

Responding to an incident in Plovdiv in which a protester was filmed setting fire to a copy of Bulgaria’s constitution, Plevneliev told the news conference that he appealed to people to, before burning the constitution, “read it – it’s interesting reading”.

 

 

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