BULGARIA’S PARLIAMENT APPROVED THE RESIGNATION OF PM BOYKO BORISSOV’S GOVERNMENT

On 16th of November, Bulgaria’s Parliament voted to approve the resignation of the government led by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

218 MPs voted in favour of the resignation, no one voted against and 2 MPs from the ruling centre-right GERB abstained.

The vote was taken after almost 2 hours of debate. Thje sitting was opened and chaired by the speaker of the National assembly, Tsetska Tsacheva, who was the candidate of Borissov’s centre-right GERB party for President, but lost the Presidential elections in the runoff between her and the socialist-backed candidate Rumen Radev, who won the elections.

PM Borissov thanked for the support and stated that he would remain at the availability of the public, in the event one day they may decide to work with him again. He said that although he submitted the resignation of the government, it would continue to run the country until the election of a new government and would ensure continuity in the governance of Bulgaria.

Borissov congratulated the winners of the presidential elections, the President-elect Rumen Radev and Vice-president Iliana Yotova.

He said that the vote on Sunday made it clear that people wanted new, change.

“Governing is conferred by the people and the moment that they have their doubts that this is the appropriate government, it has to be handed back immediately. This is my conviction. The people said on Sunday, look for another way to govern the state,” Borissov said.

He urged the political parties to make the caretaker government to maintain calm in the state and to hear what people said in the referendum. Borisov advised the vote on the 2017 Budget to avoid populist proposals.

The Speaker of Parliament opened the debate at 14:35.

First to speak was Valeri Simeonov, co-leader from the Parliamentary group of the Patriotic Front and urged the MPs from GERB for the sake of stability to not make significant changes and when offered a mandate to form a government, to form the same government but with a different Prime Minister.

Kornelia Ninova, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said that her party would definitely vote for the government’s resignation.

“We definitely won this election, not alone but with the people,” Ninova said. She said that she was proud of this, but it was not a reason for complacency and aggression, because “it is not honourable to kick a person or party when they’re down, but it would be irresponsible not to point out the mistakes”.

The Speaker of Parliament opened the debate at 14:35. First to speak was Valeri Simeonov, co-leader from the Parliamentary group of the Patriotic Front and urged the MPs from GERB for the sake of stability to not make significant changes and when offered a mandate to form a government, to form the same government but with a different Prime Minister.

Kornelia Ninova, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said that her party would definitely vote for the government’s resignation.

“We definitely won this election, not alone but with the people,” Ninova said. She said that she was proud of this, but it was not a reason for complacency and aggression, because “it is not honourable to kick a person or party when they’re down, but it would be irresponsible not to point out the mistakes”.

The leader of the DOST party Lyutvi Mestan, former leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, said that political consultations on calling elections to a Grand National Assembly should begin immediately, “to remove all constitutional obstacles to turning Bulgaria into a modern Euro-Atlantic state”. Otherwise, the only road ahead was to another disappointment from another ad hoc governing majority, Mestan said.

Naiden Zelenogorski, co-chair from the Reformist Bloc (a minority partner in Borissov’s coalition) said that the assessment of the government was strictly positive but the bloc would support the resignation of the Cabinet.

Radan Kanev, from Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, which recently left the Reformist Bloc said that Bulgaria was heading into its fifth year of political crisis without any clear prospect of emerging from it.

He said that the reason was the systematic placing of the party interest above the national interest in the running of the state. This was in regard to control over justice and the judicial system, the administration, in the spending of EU funds, used in favour of the ruling party.

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