Bulgaria’s political crisis: Borissov says he is abandoning bid to be PM, form government
Boiko Borissov, the leader of the GERB-UDF coalition which is Parliament’s largest group, said on November 26 that he was abandoning his bid to be elected Prime Minister and would not seek to fulfil his coalition’s mandate to seek to form a government.
This was the latest development in the political crisis that has deepened since Bulgaria held its most recent early parliamentary elections on October 27.
Borissov initially had insisted that he should be Prime Minister, once GERB-UDF, as the new Parliament’s largest group, gets the first mandate to seek to form a government.
He had insisted that the Speaker of the National Assembly be elected from his coalition. This proved fruitless, with only GERB-UDF MPs supporting the candidacy of Raya Nazaryan over five days of the first sitting of the 51st National Assembly.
This past weekend, Borissov altered his position. While still insisting that he should be Prime Minister, he proposed to Parliament’s second-largest group, We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria, that WCC-DB’s Atanas Atanassov be elected Speaker in return for that coalition supplying its support for him to be PM.
That gambit failed, with the two sides not agreeing on talks, which GERB-UDF wanted to start with negotiations about positions, while WCC-DB wanted them to start with policies and a formal undertaking from Borissov to distance himself from Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski.
On November 25, WCC-DB emphasised that it could not accept Borissov being Prime Minister. Similarly, most other groups in the Parliament have said that they opposed Borissov becoming PM.
Borissov told a briefing on November 26 that he was withdrawing his bid to be PM “categorically, with relief”.
He said that he did not want to lead “this broken country”.
“I categorically refuse to deal with all the problems that the WCC-DB have planted in us in in the past four years,” Borissov said.
He repeated his scorn for WCC-DB’s proposal for a Prime Minister “equidistant” from all parties.
“Who is this equidistant Prime Minister, who is this alien? I want to compete with him! Who is he? We are eagerly awaiting the equidistant Prime Minister. We said how the political crisis could end tomorrow! Who is trading posts?” he said.
Borissov was speaking on the eve of the November 27 continuation of the first sitting of the new National Assembly, which is to see another attempt to elect a Speaker.
At the close of the meeting on November 22, ITN’s Silvi Kirilov again had 101 votes at the second round, 20 short of the figure needed for election.
Backers of Kirilov have appealed for the Bulgarian Socialist Party – United Left to supply its 20 votes to get Kirilov elected, but so far the BSP – United Left has refused.
BSP – United Left invited five parties and coalitions – excluding GERB-UDF and Peevski’s people – for talks to find a way out of the stalemate.
On November 26, of the five, only two attended: pro-Kremlin party Vuzrazhdane and nationalist-populist Mech.
Meanwhile, the political formations in the 51st National Assembly are endeavouring to get around the fact that the formal process of seeking to form a government cannot start because a Speaker has not been elected.
The absence of an elected Speaker means that, strictly in terms of procedure, parliamentary groups cannot be formed, but the route around this that is being followed is for each group to formally declare its own existence.
That would open the way for the head of state to hand over the first mandate. Should Borissov keep his word and return that mandate, the second would go to WCC-DB, as Parliament’s second-largest group.
Borissov said on November 26 that he would not support any mandate held by another group.
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