The MPs of the Bulgarian National Assembly accepted with 226 votes "in favour" the refusal of Maria Gabriel to head Bulgaria as Prime Minister with the first mandate to form a cabinet, reported BGNES.
Maria Gabriel refused to lead Bulgaria as prime minister from GERB-Union of Democratic Forces (GERB-UDF) and declared that she would not propose the composition and structure of the Council of Ministers.
However, in the course of the debates in the plenary hall, the We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB) proposed to the GERB that the second mandate be realized as a national one - shared with the prime minister again, proposed by the GERB.
"We are ready to realize the second mandate as a joint one with GERB-UDF", announced the parliamentary tribune, Gen. Atanas Atanasov.
This is not an invitation to negotiate. This is a proposal with an expression of readiness to fulfil the commitments we publicly made 9 months ago, he added.
For his part, Kiril Petkov called on GERB to take a step forward for the reforms to take place - in the judicial system, in the services, in the regulators.
"If the regulators, the judicial system and the services are not fixed, we have not achieved a European state. 9 months ago we talked about 18 months of governance. You must keep your word," said Petkov.
The opposition immediately reacted, first with cheers in the hall.
"You should pray, and your colleagues from GERB-UDF should laugh. The only thing that can secure you a second term is to propose Borisov as prime minister. I feel sorry for you", addressed the deputy chairman of the PG of the BSP Georgi Svilenski to Atanas Atanasov and the WCC-DB declaration.
Cornelia Ninova, the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, said that the successful refusal of Gabriel to be prime minister was a natural and normal end to an abnormal coalition.
"Those who wanted to deal with the parallel state embraced the mafia and offered to share the state with it. All this was dressed up in beautiful words about Euro-Atlanticism, for higher goals - the Eurozone, Schengen, the European Economic Community and a higher quality of life, they failed", Ninova believes. "Instead of Schengen, we got migrants, the Eurozone is a distant goal, not to mention the quality of life because you didn't talk about health care reform and other key sectors. All the time you were arguing for power," Ninova added.
She explained that the BSP will not participate in the second term and will not accept the third.
An attack also came from "Vazrazhdane", which saw an outcome only in new elections, but also blamed PP for perhaps the low voter turnout. "Bulgarians are disgusted by what is happening. With shameful coalitions with GERB, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), we are getting to the point where people are disgusted by the elections", said MP Tsoncho Ganev.
GERB-UDF and MRF remained silent during the debates about the failure of the first mandate.
This is what is written in the letter, with which the WCC-DB propose a general second mandate for the party of Boyko Borisov:
"According to the Constitution, a second exploratory mandate for the formation of a government is to be handed over. According to the decision of the Parliamentary Group of the Coalition "Continuing the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" and the bodies of the parties in the coalition, we confirm our readiness to implement this mandate as a national, respectively common, with the Parliamentary Group GERB-UDF.
We are ready to do so subject to the commitments we made to each other 9 months ago in the following frameworks: ● Signing by the presidents of the two parliamentary groups of the Agreement containing concrete guarantees for reforms in the judicial system, regulators and security services with clear dates for implementation; ● Prime Minister: a mutually acceptable candidacy issued by the "GERB-UDF" Parliamentary Group; ● Composition: the current composition of the Council of Ministers (CoM), as far as the negotiations for the implementation of the first mandate found that the parties could not agree on changes in the composition, as required by our initial mutual commitments to form a rotating management and in the draft agreement; ● Structure: preservation of the previous structure of the MS.
To clarify, this is not an invitation to further negotiations beyond the stated framework. This proposal is an expression of our willingness to fulfil the commitments we made publicly 9 months ago. We have a constitutional, political and civic duty to propose a realistic formula to prevent another parliamentary crisis, and we are doing so. The debt to Bulgaria makes us responsible and to use the last chance that the Constitution gives us and to make a last attempt not to throw the country into a crisis and a series of elections.
If we refuse, we will consider that we have fulfilled our obligations and will return the mandate unfulfilled to the president. We expect an official response with your decision by the date of the invitation for the handing over of a second exploratory mandate by the president", reads the proposal of WCC-DB to GERB-UDF. / BGNES
