Borissov: I will not be candidate PM
Prime Minister and GERB party leader Boiko Borissov said on April 14 that he would not be the candidate prime minister in a government to be proposed by his party.
Borissov was speaking a day before the 45th National Assembly, elected on April 4, holds its first sitting.
GERB won the largest share of votes in Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections. The constitution confers on the winner of the largest share of votes the right to the first of three attempts to get a government voted into office.
However, the other five groups in the newly-elected National Assembly all oppose a government nominated by Borissov taking office.
Speaking during a visit to Veliko Turnovo, Borissov declined to say who GERB’s candidate prime minister would be.
He denied that it would be current Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev.
Borissov denied reports that he had withdrawn his confidence from Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandukova and Bourgas mayor Dimitar Nikolov, two of the deputy leaders of GERB, because of the party having run second to rivals in those cities.
GERB is scheduled to hold a national conference on May 11. The election of a party leader is not on the agenda, but elections of deputy leaders are scheduled, and reports have said that Fandukova and Nikolov will be ousted.
Earlier on April 14, addressing a Cabinet meeting – the last before his government tables its resignation in the new National Assembly – Borissov said that Bulgaria’s electorate had firmly put GERB into first place “and that is why we will approach the formation of a new government responsibly”.
Borissov said that the Covid-19 pandemic in Bulgaria had not passed and that was another reason to take a responsible approach to the formation of a government.
He said that those who ask whether his party was afraid of a caretaker government “are themselves afraid of democracy”.
Should all three attempts at getting a government voted into office, Bulgaria’s constitution requires the head of state, President Roumen Radev, to dissolve Parliament, set an election date and appoint a caretaker government.
Radev is politically hostile to Borissov, which has led to several comments that Borissov would make every effort to avoid a Radev-appointed caretaker government.
Should – as expected – a government nominated by Borissov not be voted into office, the second mandate would be handed to cable television presenter Slavi Trifonov, whose ITN party ran second on April 4.
Last week, Borissov said that he would supply the votes of his MPs to allow a cabinet nominated by Trifonov to be voted into office.
(Photo via Borissov’s Facebook page)
Please support independent journalism by clicking on the orange button below. For as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies, you can support The Sofia Globe via patreon.com and get access to exclusive subscriber-only content:
