Deadlock over election of Speaker remains on fifth day of first sitting of Bulgaria’s new Parliament
Eleven days after its first sitting began, Bulgaria’s 51st National Assembly again failed to elect a Speaker, leaving it unable to begin normal parliamentary work and leaving in place an obstacle to the start of the formal process of seeking to form a government.
With the new Parliament still not properly constituted, the process of the head of state offering a succession of mandates to seek to form a government cannot begin.
Proceedings on November 22, the fifth day the MPs elected on October 27 have continued the first sitting, lasted about four hours.
It took them three and a half hours to get to the actual voting on the candidates to be Speaker, after lengthy heated exchanges of insults.
Proceedings continue to be overshadowed by the fact that because of the 2023 amendments to the constitution, MPs are being asked to elect not only a Speaker. Whoever holds that office is also a potential candidate caretaker Prime Minister.
Boiko Borissov, leader of GERB-UDF, which has the largest share of seats in Parliament, is continuing to insist that his coalition’s candidate should be elected Speaker.
However, on all five days on which the first sitting has continued, that candidate, Raya Nazaryan has got votes solely from GERB-UDF, with all other parties and coalitions opposed.
Borissov, who rarely speaks in the House, took to the rostrum on November 22 with an emotional address, saying that everyone wants him to take responsibility, while refusing to accept his candidate Speaker.
“What do you want from me? To withdraw the candidate for whom more than 600 000 voted? Well, I will not withdraw (the candidate)! Nothing gives me the right to withdraw (the candidate)!”
Borissov said that in the next elections, he would include a candidate MP who was born in 1930, a reference to the rule that until a Speaker is elected, the oldest MP presides over the sitting.
November 22 saw, as had November 20, an initial four candidates: Nazaryan, Natalia Kiselova of the Bulgarian Socialist Party – United Left coalition, Petar Petrov of pro-Russian party Vuzrazhdane and Silvi Kirilov of populist party ITN, who as the oldest MP has been presiding over the sitting.
With Nazaryan and Kirilov having won the two largest shares of votes at the first round, 68 and 66, respectively, they went to a second round, getting 68 and 101 votes, respectively.
The votes for Kirilov came from 17 of WCC-DB’s MPs, 35 Vuzrazhdane MPs, 19 Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ARF) MPs, 18 ITN and 12 Mech MPs. Seventeen WCC-DBs abstained and one voted against Kirilov.
The result made it clear that the BSP – United Left had not heeded ITN’s call to back Kirilov, which could have put him over the threshold for election.
The BSP – United Left said that it had invited WCC-DB, Vuzrazhdane, ARF, ITN and Mech for talks on a “supra-party majority that will stand behind several clear priorities, and on the basis of these priorities to nominate a parliamentary Speaker”.
The 51st National Assembly’s first sitting is to continue on November 27.
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