Bulgarian President says she will name caretaker Prime Minister-designate in coming days

Bulgarian head of state President Iliyana Yotova said on February 10 that she would announce the name of the caretaker Prime Minister-designate in coming days.

Yotova was speaking at the close of consultations with parliamentary groups, a step before designating a caretaker Prime Minister and decreeing the date of Bulgaria’s next early parliamentary elections.

Yotova began the process of consultations on February 3 and held the second round on February 4.

Five office-bearers have told Yotova that they were willing to be appointed caretaker Prime Minister: Bulgarian National Bank deputy governor Andrei Gyurov, Deputy Ombudsman Maria Filipova, Audit Office head Dimitar Glavchev (twice before caretaker Prime Minister) and Audit Office deputy heads Maria Nikolova and Silvia Kadreva.

Yotova has stretched out the process of consultations, having said that she is aiming for the early parliamentary elections to be held on the first possible date after Bulgaria’s April 10 to 13 Orthodox Easter holidays. According to the constitution, parliamentary elections must be held within two months of a caretaker government taking office.

The caretaker Prime Minister will have seven days within which to submit to the President the line-up of the proposed caretaker government.

On the final day of consultations, Yotova met the National Assembly’s three smallest groups – the Ahmed Dogan loyalists of the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ARF), and two nationalist-populist parties, Mech and Velichie.

She told the ARF group that the caretaker Prime Minister must deal with the many challenges facing the country, and most importantly, with the organisation of fair elections.

“Based on consultations with the political forces in the National Assembly, I will indicate who is the most suitable from the extremely short list of those who agreed to become caretaker Prime Minister from the circle of persons provided for in the constitution,” Yotova said.

She said that the consultations outlined the most pressing problems facing Bulgarian citizens, which Yotova described as including the “continuing price hike”, the management of the state’s finances for this year, and the upholding of Bulgaria’s foreign policy priorities.

In contrast to the warm and friendly atmosphere with the ARF and those on earlier days, Yotova’s conversation with the Mech representatives was completely different, as the party’s leader, Radostin Vassilev, poured out a bunch of accusations against the President and finally simply got up and left without even listening to her answer.

Vassilev said that Bulgaria had not undergone “a real lustration, like in the Czech Republic,” and that is why high-ranking state positions were still held by people connected to the communist nomenklatura and State Security.

He also included Yotova in this group because she is a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and said that she should have resigned, along with Roumen Radev. Radev left office on January 23, to enter parliamentary politics, with former vice-president Yotova succeeding him as head of state to serve out the remainder of his term in office.

Vassilev said that Yotova was “deliberately dragging out” the consultations to give Radev time for the parliamentary elections, as well as to conduct his own campaign for the presidential elections at the end of the year.

Finally, he got up and started to leave. “Aren’t you going to at least listen to me?” Yotova said. “No, we don’t need to listen to you,” Vassilev said.

The consultations about the appointment of a caretaker government are not a place for an election campaign, Yotova said.

(Photo, of the February 10 talks with ARF: president.bg)