The long-awaited resignation of Plamen Oresharski’s expert cabinet was voted by the National Assembly. The resignation was known to be an inevitability even with the formation of the compromise minority parliamentary coalition comprising the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, with the tacit support of Ataka (socialists, liberals and nationalists), and the isolation of the winner in the early general election on May 12, 2013 - GERB (conservatives). After the European Parliament elections on May 25 this year, the disastrous meltdown in support for the mandate-holder, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the new configuration of political forces, tipping the scales in favour of the opposition and the ensuing political and institutional crisis in the country logically made it unavoidable. And prompted the Prime Minister to tender it without further ado, even though the constitution stipulates a 4-year term of office.

That opened a window of opportunity to hold early general elections on the date agreed by the leading parties in the country – October 5, 2014, following the procedure of a second attempt at forming a government within the term of office of the current National Assembly. According to the consensus reached at a meeting of the political forces, organized by President Rossen Plevneliev, they will waive this right and on August 6 this year, the head of state will issue a decree, dissolving the 42^nd National Assembly and will appoint a caretaker government for a term of two months. Until that time the current government will continue to function.

The stocktaking

From the very start, the one-year administration of the Oresharksi cabinet, self-proclaimed as socially oriented, was accompanied by widespread civil protests demanding its resignation; the reasons - dubious appointments with the sour taste of backroom oligarchic and partocratic maneuvering with hazy power motives in contravention of all democratic rules. It will go down in history as the government and the parliament guarded most heavily from its own people in the poorest country of the EU, for the nonsensical phenomenon “counter-protest” (or protest in support of the government), for the unprecedented interference by the prosecutor’s office in the work of parliament and the executive, for the sense of instability, frustration, chaos and “playing” against the rules.

The legacy

The outgoing government is leaving several key problems hanging that will have to be solved by the caretaker cabinet with no functioning parliament and in a situation that is both difficult and complex. These problems include the budget update of both the state and of the National Health Insurance Fund, the nomination of a Bulgarian EU commissioner, the swift recovery of the European funding under two of the blocked European programmes and the speeding up of the absorption of European funds under the remaining programmes for the 2007-2014 period by the end of the year and last but not least - a solution to the problem of the fourth biggest bank – the Corporate Commercial Bank.

English version: Milena Daynova