Parliament approves appointment of deputy PM Buchvarova as Interior Minister
Bulgaria’s unicameral Parliament, the National Assembly, voted on March 11 2015 to approve the first changes to the centre-right coalition cabinet since it came into office in November, with Vesselin Vuchkov leaving the post of Interior Minister, which goes to Deputy Prime Minister Roumyana Buchvarova.
The vote was 139 in favour, 68 against and with one recorded abstention.
Those voting in favour were MPs from Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s ruling party GERB, its coalition cabinet partner the Reformist Bloc, socialist breakaway ABC and the nationalist Patriotic Front, as well as the Bulgarian Democratic Centre group, formerly known as Bulgaria Without Censorship.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party and Movement for Rights and Freedoms voted against. MPs for Volen Siderov’s far-right ultra-nationalists Ataka, while present, did not vote.
Vuchkov submitted his resignation at a March 4 cabinet meeting over a cabinet office legal opinion that appeared to thwart his ambition to dismiss Interior Ministry chief secretary Svetozar Lazarov.
Borissov accepted his resignation on the spot, while a day later, the Prime Minister called for the resignations of Lazarov and of State Agency for National Security chief Vladimir Pisanchev. Lazarov and Pisanchev have both resigned and nominations for their replacements are yet to be made public.
