A month after being elected, Bulgaria’s Parliament still has no Speaker
The first sitting of Bulgaria’s 51st National Assembly entered its sixth day on November 27 – a month after it was elected – with the deadlock over the choice of a Speaker remaining in place.
The first sitting began on November 11, and each of the days that Parliament has met since then has seen a repeat of events, with few variations.
As with the two previous meetings, the November 27 continuation saw an initial field of four candidates: Raya Nazaryan (GERB-UDF), Petar Petrov (Vuzrazhdane), Natalia Kiselova (Bulgarian Socialist Party – United Left) and Silvi Kirilov (ITN), who as Parliament’s oldest member has been presiding over the sitting pending the election of a Speaker.
As before, Nazaryan got 69 votes, solely from GERB-UDF, Kirilov 66, sending them to a second round.
The second round was held after more than 90 minutes of adjournments, in which backers of Kirilov tried again to get from Democratic Bulgaria and BSP – United Left MPs the votes for Kirilov to be elected.
To be elected, a candidate must get half plus one of the votes of MPs present in the House.
In the second round, Nazaryan again got 69 votes, again solely from GERB-UDF.
A second round re-vote saw Kirilov get 100 votes in favour, 101 against, with 16 abstentions.
The votes in favour of Kirilov came from 17 We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria MPs (with one of that group voting against and one abstaining), Vuzrazhdane 34, Ahmed Dogan’s Alliance for Rights and Freedoms 19, ITN 18 and Mech 12.
Part of the day’s meeting was taken up with WCC-DB appealing to Kirilov to crack down on the use of abusive language, after ITN’s Toshko Yordanov unleashed a torrent of vulgar insults against WCC-DB’s Yavor Bozhanov after Bozhanov made allegations against Kirilov regarding his business and political background.
The first sitting is scheduled to resume on November 28.
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