Bulgaria’s President names Audit Office head Glavchev to be caretaker Prime Minister – reports
Bulgarian President Roumen Radev had named Audit Office head Dimitar Glavchev to be caretaker Prime Minister, according to reports on March 29 by public broadcasters Bulgarian National Radio and Bulgarian National Television.
The announcement comes after Radev held individual meetings with office-bearers listed in the amended constitution as eligible to be candidate PM, following the failure of the process for Bulgaria’s parliamentary groups to come up with a government that could viably be elected into office by the National Assembly.
This, in turn, was a sequel to the resignation of the Nikolai Denkov government, elected in June 2023, and the subsequent abortive process of the GERB-UDF and We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria coalitions of negotiations on a successive government.
Radev named Glavchev in spite of Boiko Borissov, leader of the Bulgarian Parliament’s largest group, GERB-UDF, having made a public appeal to Radev not to choose Glavchev or National Assembly Speaker Rossen Zhelyazkov as caretaker PM because of their close links to GERB-UDF, a political liability as Bulgaria heads to its sixth parliamentary elections in just more than three years.
According to reports by BNR and BNT, on 2pm on March 30, Radev is to receive caretaker Prime Minister-designate Glavchev “in order to instruct him to propose the composition of an interim government”.
The constitution, as amended in 2023, provides for the head of state to choose a caretaker PM from a limited list.
In naming a caretaker Prime Minister, the head of state must choose from among the Speaker of the National Assembly, the governor and deputy governor of central Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), the Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman and head and deputy head of the Audit Office. Radev held speed-dating sessions with the eligible office-bearers on March 28 and 29, including those who for various reasons made clear to varying degrees that they should not get the job.
The naming of Glavchev came in the hours after legislation was tabled in Bulgaria’s Parliament for a hasty, quick-fix solution to conflicts between the amended constitution on the naming of a caretaker Prime Minister and existing statute creating obstacles to the provisions on the matter in that amended constitution.
Glavchev has a master’s degree in of International Economic Relations and Accounting from the University of National and World Economy.
He is a chartered accountant and registered auditor from the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
According to his official CV on the website of the Auditor’s Office, he has more than 30 years of professional experience in the field of auditing, financial control and accounting, and more than 20 of these years are in the field of independent audit, including engagements for contracted procedures of EU-funded projects.
Glavchev was a member of Parliament, for GERB, and member of the committee on budget and finance from the 41st to the 46th National Assembly.
He was head of the committee on budget and finance and head of the standing subcommittee on public sector accountability in the 41st National Assembly.
Glavchev was Speaker of the National Assembly for some months in 2017, resigning amid controversy, as The Sofia Globe reported at the time.
In terms of the amended constitution, the caretaker Prime Minister must come up with the line-up of a caretaker Cabinet, to be decreed by the President. In a second, separate, decree, the President must decree a date for parliamentary elections.
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