The motion of no-confidence against the cabinet submitted by the Bulgarian Socialist Party was recently rejected by this country’s National Assembly. However, protesters remain in the streets and continue to demand the resignation of Bulgaria’s government and of Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. The public discontent demanding the restart of the country reminds us of November 10, 1989.

“There is a strong parallel between the current events and what happened 30 year ago, political scientist Evgenii Dainov says in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. – This is a protest of people who want to live in a normal European country where the rule of law is respected and the problems are not solved by force or oppression. These civilized people do not want to be governed by barbarians and this gives a huge power to the protest and makes it sustainable and durable.”

In Evgenii Dainov’s view, the calls for Grand National Assembly are hard to achieve. However, the political scientist contends that the change is possible without a new constitution – this was achieved by all other Eastern European countries after the fall of Communism, except for Bulgaria.

After the failed motion of no-confidence submitted by the socialist party, the ruling GERB party will do anything to remain in office, Svetlin Tachev, sociologist from Gallup International says:

“The cabinet refuses to resign, because it wants to avoid a caretaker cabinet appointed by President Rumen Radev”, Svetlin Tachev went on to say in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. “On the other hand, we are yet to find out whether the pressure exerted by the street protests will remain, because this is the only way the make the cabinet step down. However, the so-called cabinet reshuffles announced by the ruling coalition seem most realistic at this stage. An expert cabinet formed within the frameworks of the current National Assembly is another possible option.”

As for the arguments of the cabinet that it will not resign due to the danger of a caretaker cabinet, Evgenii Dainov says the following:

“GERB is telling us that a caretaker cabinet appointed by President Radev is the bogeyman of this country’s politics. They also say such cabinet will have the whole power and that it will easily hand Bulgaria over to Russia. This is absolute nonsense voiced by people who think we are stupid. First of all, the caretaker cabinet functions without a National Assembly and cannot propose and adopt any legislation whatsoever. Secondly, its job is to organize regular Parliamentary elections. Thirdly, we already had a caretaker cabinet appointed by President Rumen Radev. As far as I remember, GERB won the regular elections which were organized by Radev’s caretaker cabinet”.

What is the possible scenario for the near future?

“Boyko Borissov is at the end of his political career – it is written on his face, the way he moves and reacts”, Professor Dainov says. “I do not think GERB will be able to exist without a strong leader. Moreover, this party is yet to pay the political price for the things that are happening even during our interview – the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) is taking over the cabinet, like they did with the cabinet of former Premier Plamen Oresharski. We see that a number of ministries are already refusing to obey Premier Borissov’s orders. Bulgaria’s Minister of Finance already said that he was not going to hand in his resignation. Do you expect that the Minister of Interior will resign, since this ministry is also controlled by Delyan Peevski? These ministries declared independence from Premier Borissov and GERB. Other ministries such as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry are also controlled by DPS.”

GERB is likely to win again possible early Parliamentary elections, because the main opposition party – the Bulgarian Socialist Party has a number of problems- Svetlin Tachev forecasts. – On the other hand, many new political formations are appearing on the political stage, but I am not quite sure whether they are ready for elections now, because they are still building their political structures.”

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

Photos: BGNES and private library