2024-08-20 13:19:03
No party has officially confirmed that it will appear in the National Assembly on Wednesday
Ombudsman and his deputy, deputy governor of the BNB and deputy head of the Audit Chamber – these are the vacant posts for which you are elected, and hours later you turn out to be the prime minister of the country. There is probably no time for such heavy casting, and there are no signals of a majority in the parliament to do it.
However, a similar scenario was triggered on Monday, after all those available on the short list for acting prime ministers either refused or Rumen Radev did not approve.
Parliament, already in recess, was due to convene in an emergency on Tuesday to attend the swearing-in of Gorica Kozhareva’s new government. PP-DB used Facebook to invite all non-DPS parties to a meeting with Delyan Peevski that day. But it is not clear whether they have officially sent invitations and who will respond. Unofficially, the other headquarters commented that there is no attitude for the deputies to work until the end of August.
The motive of the PP-DB for the meeting is to vote on the changes in the law on the Audit Chamber, but it is realistic to find incumbents for the remaining three positions as well.
Dimitar Glavchev’s deputies in the palace are Goritsa Kozhareva herself and Toshko Todorov, whose mandates have expired since 2022. According to the current law, the deputies are appointed by the boss, i.e. from Glavchev. At the moment, however, he is the caretaker prime minister and has no way of doing it. And in addition to the impending retirement from official power, lawyers argued whether he could even return to the Audit House, since by law former prime ministers of the last 5 years cannot apply for positions there. Therefore, the fate of Kozhareva, who was still only a candidate for prime minister, is not clear.
If casting is to be started, the deputies must first write procedural rules for choosing Glavchev’s deputies. Usually, they provide for nominations by MPs, parliamentary groups and NGOs, who provide a resume, are checked for connections with the DS and appear at a hearing in a parliamentary committee, and then are voted on by the floor. How urgently this can be done depends mainly on how fast the deputies are, since there is no timetable by law. The process can be shortened to about a month.
It took parliament six weeks at the beginning of the year to elect the new constitutional judges Desislava Atanasova and Borislav Belazelkov, but two of them were off because of the Christmas and New Year holidays. At that time, however, there was a clear majority of GERB-SDS, PP-DB and DPS, and the procedure went smoothly, because there was prior coordination for the names.
No one has yet submitted a request for the election of an ombudsman. The parties would certainly find it difficult to agree on a name. And according to the old rules, a substitute for the incumbent is broadcast a month later.
By the end of the day on Monday, only the independents around Jevdet Chakarov were ready to go to the meeting. “Vazrazhdane” set a condition not to elect people related to PP-DB.
BSP and ITN used the occasion once again to speak out against the changes in the constitution. The Socialists will come out with a position on their desk, but a few days ago their temporary leader Atanas Zafirov explained that this parliament should not make important decisions. GERB and DPS remained silent.