Bulgarian Parliament’s sitting to debate Electoral Code amendments scuppered
The Bulgarian Parliament’s sitting that had been scheduled to begin on April 28 was cancelled after it failed to agree on the agenda for the week.
Boiko Borissov’s GERB, Kornelia Ninova’s Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms abstained from voting on the agenda, resulting in the cancellation of the sitting.
The agenda had included the first reading of amendments to the Political Parties Act, to reduce state subsidies for political parties, the second reading of amendments to the Electoral Code, and a draft proposal to establish an ad hoc committee of inquiry into the legality of construction sites in Rosenets park and the actions of law enforcement and political parties during protests last year near MRF founder Ahmed Dogan’s seaside villa.
Democratic Bulgaria coalition parliamentary leader Hristo Ivanov said that GERB, the BSP and the MRF had sunk the opportunity to change the election rules.
“People expected us to do at least that,” Ivanov said.
He said that with both of the first two mandates to seek to form a government having been handed back, “we are now officially in a political crisis”.
On April 23, GERB handed back the mandate it had received as the winner of the most votes in the April 4 parliamentary elections. All other groups in Parliament refuse to vote for a government nominated by Borissov.
On April 28, Trifonov’s ITN party handed back the mandate it received as the second-largest group in Parliament.
Ivanov said that the issue now was to conduct a very sober assessment of the possibilities of forming a working majority in this Parliament.
“Maybe it would be good for GERB, the MRF and BSP to go to the voters and explain this behaviour,” he said.
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