Bulgaria’s new Parliament returns GERB’s Tsacheva to Speaker’s chair

Tsetska Tsacheva of Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB party was on October 27 elected Speaker of the new, 43rd National Assembly.

No other candidate was nominated. Tsacheva was elected by 219 votes in favour to 12 against, with one abstaining.

Bulgarian National Assembly October 27 2014

tsacheva gerb reformist bloc mps

This is a reprise of her role in the 41st National Assembly from 2009 to 2013, when GERB was in government.

In the short-lived and highly unpopular 42nd National Assembly, GERB did not take up the offer of a deputy speaker’s post, in spite of being entitled to one as a recognised parliamentary group.

In the May 2013/August 2014 Parliament, the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s Mihail Mikov was Speaker.

While it long had been expected that a GERB election victory in October 2014 would see Tsacheva back as Speaker, Borissov offered the post to Mikov as part of political co-operation negotiations, but the BSP and Mikov turned this down.

On October 27, also elected were eight Deputy Speakers: one from each parliamentary group.

They are Dimitar Glavchev (GERB), Yanaki Stoilov (BSP), Aliosman Imamov (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), Ivan Ivanov (Reformist Bloc), Krassimir Karakachanov (Patriotic Front), Yavor Haitov (Bulgaria Without Censorship), Yavor Notev (Ataka) and Rositsa Yanakieva (ABC).

Against custom, they were not invited after their election to take up their seats on the presiding officers’ podium, because it has only five chairs, not enough for a Speaker and eight Deputy Speakers.

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