Bulgarian President begins consultations as country appears set for another early election
Bulgarian head of state President Roumen Radev began on December 15 consultations with parliamentary groups, a step mandated by the constitution before offering the first mandate to seek to form a government, though the country appears set to head to early elections.
The first meeting was with Parliament’s largest group, GERB-UDF, represented solely by Denitsa Sacheva, one of the deputy leaders of the group.
GERB-UDF, which as the largest parliamentary group is entitled by the constitution to receive the first mandate, does not intend to try to form a government in the current Parliament.
At her talks with Radev, Sacheva described entering the Presidency building as “like entering the largest party headquarters in the country”.
She called on Radev to quickly set a date for early elections, and for him to personally participate with his own political project.
Radev recently told reporters that he would announce his political project “when you least expect it”.
He told Sacheva: “Regarding my political project – this is not the place for debates – is it there, is it not there? And let’s discuss whether the cat is alive or dead. I’m talking about Schrödinger’s cat, and your colleague Tomislav Donchev is an expert in this field. I suggest that we not allow these consultations to turn into an election campaign”.
The delegation from We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria, the second-largest group in Parliament, said that they would not participate in talks to form a new governing majority in this National Assembly and demanded an answer to the question: Will Radev participate with his own political project in any future parliamentary elections?
WCC-DB called for the outgoing government to table a Budget extension bill and said that they were willing to work between Christmas and New Year so that Parliament could approve it.
Bozhidar Bozhanov, co-leader of Yes Bulgaria – a part of WCC-DB – said that electoral law should be amended so that voting is done solely using voting machines.
WCC-DB’s Atanas Atanassov challenged Radev: “Are we talking to the President now or to the competitor?”
“We are here to hold consultations after the fall of this government, we have not gathered to talk about some hypothetical party of mine,” Radev said.
(Photo: president.bg)
