"Expert government" with the third term? Such versions are an attempt to postpone the early elections after Easter. There are three main issues to be resolved before the vote. By Emilia Milcheva.
Everyone is free to dream dreams - even about an "expert government" with the third term in a country where hundreds of thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest for change. But Bulgarian politics is far from a magical reality in which the supernatural is accepted as normal. Rather, such versions are a test balloon and an attempt to postpone the early elections after Easter (April 12).
For the chairman of "We Continue the Change" (PP), Asen Vassilev, the real date is March 29, "because after that is the spring vacation of schools, and then Easter".
The third term - like the first two
For now, the vote for the 52nd parliament is set for the end of March, but only if the roulette with the mandates that begins today is completed by the end of January. The first political force - GERB-SDF, to which the president handed the first exploratory mandate, returned it immediately. PP-DB, which will receive the second mandate, declared that they will do the same. For the third one, which Rumen Radev himself chooses, there is already speculation that it may form a government.
The mention of such a hypothesis together with the BSP is equal to minus 0. The Socialist Party is torn by contradictions, a congress to change the leader is coming up, and no matter how much the current one - Atanas Zafirov, wants to serve Delyan Peevski, it will be a joke. And somehow the president is not bound to choose the party that swayed him for his first term once again, since he is a participant in a government that resigned after protests. But the BSP leader has an interest in the negotiations stretching out over time, since the socialist congress is on February 7-8 and the longer the cadres appointed during the one-year government remain in their posts, the chances of securing re-election at least do not decrease.
The competition for the third term will hardly be "There are such people" (ITN) - also part of the still ruling party and has repeatedly shown honor and respect to the president. Slavi Trifonov's party has already stated at the consultations with the president that "it is not reasonable to seek a new reconfiguration" in this parliament.
DPS 1 and 2 are not in the running. The opposition MECH and "Velichy" do not have much weight, and for "Vazrazhdane" this National Assembly is "politically dead" and elections in March are possible.
Elections in March or April?
The Constitution does not set a deadline for the head of state to hand over an exploratory mandate to form a government to either the first or the second political force. But there is a 7-day period in which they can return the mandate, and another week in which the president can choose who will receive the third. And this third one has no restriction period for consultations.
This does not mean that it can drag on for a long time. However, it is enough for the negotiations to drag on for them to fail as expected in early February. Then the vote will be in April, since the elections are scheduled for up to two months after the completion of the mandate procedure.
The first Sunday in April falls on Palm Sunday (April 5), and the next is Easter (April 12) - all dates on which it is not appropriate to vote.
Postponing the elections in time is convenient for the status quo to regroup, but it is also a double-edged sword. Those against whom the protests were held have time to negotiate, prepare compromises or influence the results. (Also, to distribute as many millions as possible through the Municipal Investment Program, payments for which continue with a special government decision). The longer the time until the vote is stretched, the less attention will be paid to the structural problems of the conquered state, because of which citizens took to the streets. The current affairs will shift the focus.
But public discontent may erupt again if the ruling party does not change the Electoral Code in favor of machine voting, now reduced to printing receipts. "Without 100 thousand in the square, 100% machine voting will be difficult to introduce", said the co-chairman of "Yes, Bulgaria" (part of "Democratic Bulgaria") Ivaylo Mirchev. The idea of completely machine voting has so far been supported only by "Vazrazhdane", from which they also insist on a new composition of the CEC with the argument that they have been in parliament for five years and have no representation in the commission.
The ruling majority does not accept these ideas. GERB, as well as ITN, do not want to change the election rules before the vote. They should not have thought of it at the last moment, but should have proposed it earlier, commented GERB MP Delyan Dobrev.
In the conditions of the government's resignation, new protests would hardly force the parliament to change the election rules. So the solution is in the high voter turnout, which will dilute the bought and controlled vote. According to the latest study by the sociological agency "Alpha Research" it will be higher by about 10% - up to half a million voters are expected to go to the polls. In the last vote in October 2024, 2,570,629 people voted.
Who will be the acting prime minister?
After the changes to the Electoral Code and the election date, the figure of the acting prime minister is the third key issue due to the organization of the elections - and depending on who will be the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Two names are circulating in the public space - Deputy Governor Andrey Gyurov, the only representative of the PP-DB in the "house book", in which all the others are Borisov-Peevski's selection, and the head of the Court of Accounts Dimitar Glavchev, with experience as an acting prime minister. Gyurov is awaiting the outcome of the case he filed against the BNB, which removed him from office. The reason for this was the decision of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) that he was incompatibilist, since he did not leave OOD after his election as deputy governor and did not request permission from the BNB to be a member of the board of two associations.
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) froze the case and turned to the Court of Justice of the EU. After the European magistrates have ruled, the case in the SAC will continue. But despite these legal vicissitudes, Gyurov is still one of the three deputy governors of the BNB, since he has been on unpaid leave since June 2024 and can therefore be elected as acting prime minister.
Incidentally, the election of an acting prime minister could also further delay the scheduling of the elections. The vocal concerns that none of the provisions of the "house book" heads of institutions and regulators to disagree are not accidental.
But the majority had better be careful with the games to gain time, because the patience of the citizens may boil over again - and they will not like the result.
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This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State News Agency as a whole.