New turbulence in the ruling majoirty over WCC-DB memorandum - will there be a 2-in-1 election?

Turbulence in the non-coalition because of the memorandum of “We Continue the Change- Democratic Bulgaria” (WCC-DB), which insists Nikolai Denkov to be foreign minister (after the upcoming cabinet rotation when Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel and PM Nikolai Denkov should switch posts). The document also proposes a mechanism for electing the leadership of the regulators.

According to GERB leader Boyko Borissov, the document is unacceptable and shows that 2-in-1 elections are the logical end of the non-coalition.

The WCC-DB responded that the document was not an ultimatum but a basis for negotiations.

Boyko Borissov is surprised that the memorandum was not coordinated with the GERB-UDF before it was announced to the media. He defined it as an immature political practice. According to him, such a document should be prepared by a working group with representatives from both sides and when it is ready it should be signed by the leaders.

"Mariya Gabriel on the phone read the first few sentences to me. I stopped her reading because I wasn’t interested in the rest of the text. The post of foreign minister is the only one, the only ministry that GERB once fought for, made a concession in order to have a government with the second mandate and Denkov to be the prime minister of this government. For me, from what they have written - the first 10 lines - they read them to me, the 2-in-1 elections are the absolutely logical conclusion of this non-coalition, "said the leader of GERB.

Borissov was outraged that they were proposing rules to change regulators nine months after the start of the government.

"At a time when they are busily changing regulators, this approach is no longer immature, this approach is arrogant," he said.

Borissov ironically called the offer made to them by WCC-DB “extremely generous".

"It is anything but principles. What it offers is to divide the state in two with Kirill Petkov, to turn our backs on parliamentarism, to turn our backs on the opposition, to divide everything 50-50 for the next seven years," Borissov said.

Kiril Petkov clarified that their proposals were not understood correctly.

“It says clearly: 'the sides refuse to nominate candidates with a bright political profile, we give the opportunity to a civil profile and put a deliberate integrity check'." Realistically, what is happening is that we need to give up control. This memorandum is not an ultimatum," Petkov said.

WCC-DB suggests that teams of lawyers should be sent to carefully discuss the memorandum. They stressed that the document is an invitation to GERB-UDF negotiations.

"I see that everyone is focusing their attention on personnel issues, but this is not the main thing. The main thing is before the rotation to sit down at the negotiating table without any red lines and to clarify the policies from now on, which we will exercise together for the next 9 months at least," Atanas Atanasov, Co-Chairman of WCC-DB Group, pointed out.

GERB did not agree with the clarifications.

"I don't think it is an invitation for negotiations, but rather an attempt to sabotage negotiations," said Toma Bikov.

WCC-DB received harsh criticism from the MRF.

We won't participate in a split, said Delyan Peevski of MRF.

"Someone wants to divide the state in a very exotic way I can say: we have seen that colleagues like to push into the regulators. There is nothing for the people. There is only a division of services, a division of prosecutors, a division of courts, a division of the Anti-Corruption Agency. We will oppose it by saying that we will not support this division. According to the constitution, where there is a blocking quota of 160 votes. We will not participate in the division," said Delyan Peevski.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) again called for resignation and for a two-in-one elections.

"This is a memorandum of disgrace of "We Continue the Change" and Democratic Bulgaria - the parties that were going to scrape off GERB, that arrested Borissov, were going to change the model of governance, now they offer the same model and 50% of the state to Borissov. Secondly, this is a memorandum-self-confession that this assemblage (the word frequently used to refer to the cooperation between the power holders in the government – WCC-DB and GERB-UDF)) exists only to distribute posts," said Kornelia Ninova, chairwoman of the BSP.

We will see in the coming days how the tremor in the non-coalition will end.

***

"We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB) on February 20 offered their power sharing partners from GERB-UDF a memorandum with the main goals of the government in the next nine months.

Kiril Petkov of WCC-DB said that one of the important items in this memorandum are the regulators, where the WCC-DB and GERB-UDF should have equal quotas. Petkov added that the memorandum will be signed by the political leaders, and by Mariya Gabriel and Nikolai Denkov.

Petkov also suggested that if the two power-sharing alliances, WCC-DB and GERB -UDF fail to reach an agreement, early parliamentary elections should be held simultaneously with the European elections.

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