Bulgaria’s 2021 elections: New party says it plans deal with Democratic Bulgaria, Manolova’s group
The new political party formed by former caretaker ministers Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev plans to sign a deal with Democratic Bulgaria and Maya Manolova’s group that after Bulgaria’s November elections will turn into a coalition, Petkov said in a television interview on October 3.
As Bulgaria heads to its third parliamentary elections this year, recent opinion polls have indicated that the Petkov-Vassilev formation, called We Continue the Change (WCC), would get a significant share of seats in the next National Assembly.
Petkov said in an interview with bTV that WCC had the clearest basis for joint action with Democratic Bulgaria and “Rise Up Bulgaria! We’re Coming”.
“We will call it the principles of future governance, in which we shall include all the things that are important to us – not raising taxes, changing the Prosecutor-General, health and education as the main priorities,” Petkov said.
He said that in this way, those who voted for one of the three formations would know what to expect after the election.
Asked on what basis ministries in such a post-election coalition would be shared out, he said: “I would be very happy for the Ministry of Justice to be led by ministers from Democratic Bulgaria, because they have a lot of capacity for an independent justice system. For social affairs, I would be happy for that to go to ‘Rise Up Bulgaria! We’re Coming’ because they have a very strong focus on social action”.
Petkov said that WCC was open for talks with Slavi Trifonov’s ITN party, but for now it would not be invited to be involved in the pre-election agreement.
He said that he had “positive communications” with some of the ITN people but it was important for some of that party’s leaders to tone down their egos.
Before there could be any talks with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, that party should say “Mr Peevski really is a symbol of corruption” and in the case of GERB, that party would have to wasteful spending, directed to people close to it. Should these things happen, “why not sit down and talk to them?” Petkov said.
“In my dream world, which I think is realistic, we would have 121 MPs in Parliament, Roumen Radev would remain President, and I would be very happy to see Lozan Panov as Prosecutor-General,” said Petkov, who was economy minister in the May-September caretaker government appointed by Radev.
The Justice for All initiative, an alliance campaigning for genuine judicial reform in Bulgaria, announced on October 2 that it would nominate Panov, the current head of the Supreme Court of Cassation, as a candidate in Bulgaria’s presidential elections, being held at the same time as the country’s early parliamentary elections.
(Archive photo of Petkov: government.bg)
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