Bulgaria’s new parliament failed to muster a majority to elect a speaker last week, blocking its work and increasing the risk of another early general election, Euractiv informed.
The third attempt to choose the speaker of the newly elected 51st National Assembly failed on Friday. Candidates from the first two political forces, Raya Nazaryan and Andrei Tsekov, were put on the ballot, but neither received the necessary majority.
If Bulgaria goes to the polls again this winter, the parliament speaker could be appointed as a future interim prime minister. For the past eight months, Dimitar Glavchev, a member of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov‘s GERB party, has been interim prime minister.
Without the speaker, parliament cannot continue the process of electing the government, nor can it pass important laws related to the reconstruction plan. Borissov made it clear on Friday that he wanted to form a coalition with PP-DB, saying he had made written commitments on all issues, but there was no confirmation.
Their [PP-DB] main demands, I signed them and sent it to them. And about the imposition of a sanitary cordon’ and about the other deals they wanted. And I started a conversation because you see that reckless things at the moment lead to complete chaos in the state.
Borissov’s condition for coalition talks with other parties is precisely to support his deputy as parliament speaker, which would strengthen his power in case of a protracted political crisis and the appointment of a new interim prime minister. Analyst Parvan Simeonov of Gallup International Balkan said that there was still hope to form a government in parliament, as politicians were trying to work for it.
