A minority government is absurd! This was announced in a special interview for Iskra.bg by the political scientist prof. Todor Galunov, who is a lecturer at the University of Veliko Tarnovo. He is a professor at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius. According to him, the parties in the 51st National Assembly will not agree to voluntarily give the power into the hands of GERB – SDS. Rather, they will move towards a coalition formula of governance. Here is the full interview with prof. Todor Galunov:
– Prof. In your opinion, will there be an elected president of the 51st parliament tomorrow? We saw that yesterday after the ballot there was a stalemate.
– The situation remains complicated, unless, of course, we are surprised by something. Overall, this Parliament is procedurally very similar to previous Parliaments. Personally, I think it is good to see a positive outcome, because it means that the National Assembly will continue to work in some way. Otherwise, all activity is blocked. Bulgarian political life is very colourful. The Bulgarian political elite is very colourful. There are many red lines. We see several demands for peculiar pictures of certain political forces, and this reduces the possibilities for political combinations very much. Whether we will have an elected President tomorrow I cannot guarantee, but it will be the better option, at least at this stage, until other important things are decided, such as whether there will be a cassation of the elections.
– The post of Speaker of Parliament is very important because with the adopted changes in the Constitution it is one of the possible options for a caretaker Prime Minister if the Constitutional Court does not revert to the previous situation and the President does not have the right to appoint the caretaker government himself again…
– From that point of view, the post still has that degree of importance. The changes to the Constitution were very badly done and instead of helping to quickly resolve the parliamentary and governmental crisis, they are deepening the crisis. In this regard, this President may be elected not so much because he will be Speaker of Parliament, but because he will be a potential Prime Minister. From another point of view, this is a post that answers to the highest body in the republic, Parliament, and cannot be underestimated. The Speaker of Parliament represents the supreme authority of the people of the country. He must be a figurehead to unite.
– How then do you take the nomination of Raya Nazaryan, since a number of analysts say that this is a problematic candidacy and that is why the PP-DB put forward its own candidate?
– I think whoever GERB had nominated would not have succeeded on the first attempt to be elected president. It seems to me that there are two theses colliding here. One is that the largest party has its moral right to nominate a Speaker. There is logic here. The point is that the largest party is not big enough. With these 69 seats, they cannot impose their own Speaker without a coalition. And in this regard, whoever was GERB’s candidate would not succeed, because the candidacy for president is made dependent on the future government assembly, i.e. there will be political parceling. It is possible that there will be a swap of institutions, i.e. GERB, in order to get support for the government, will give up the post of speaker of parliament, but I think that here the personality does not matter if the parties agree. They may decide to leave the oldest one.
– The party “There is Such a People” suggested this right after the ballot…
– This is the most logical move with the clear understanding that this is some temporary solution, but the parliament will start working on the substance.
– Do you see in this configuration of the National Assembly any option for forming a government? We saw what Boyko Borissov proposed yesterday, but he said he had to be prime minister, and that blew up the political situation.
– I think this will turn out to be the main problem. The other parties seem to be willing to do some kind of coalition assembly, but with another prime minister. And I think to a large extent the failure of such a cabinet or its formation will make it clear which party wants elections and which party doesn’t, because if that’s the only price to pay to have a stable government, it’s not such a terrible price to pay. It will mean some stability, but it will also mean that personal political egos will be left behind. Such a cabinet is politically shaky – it includes GERB, PPP-DB and ITN and BSP. As it stands, it is a bit tricky.
– And do you rather see a coalition in the form of some kind of assembly or a minority government of GERB supported by these parties?
– A minority government is absurd. The moment this government receives parliamentary support and ministers from the other parties do not enter it, it will make a minority government meaningless because it will already have received a majority. There is no such model in Bulgaria in which the other parties would voluntarily give power to GERB. Then what will they explain to their voters. Rather, the coalition format is inevitable.
Rather, the coalition format is inevitable. Another question is whether they will dress it up in an expert political wrapper or whether it will be a coalition format based on the principle of allocating ministerial seats in view of parliamentary influence. There is one other problem here – we notice that running away from political responsibility is in danger of stopping bringing votes…
– Do you personally see a case for the election to be annulled?
– From what comes out as material, the grounds for serious! I can’t make a prediction as to whether it will still come to that, but the grounds are serious. For me, the more important issue is whether there will be a partial annulment of the elections or a total annulment. The question here is how many offences must be committed in order for there to be a complete annulment of the elections. However, for me personally, the way in which these elections were produced does not make a good testimonial for Bulgarian democracy. We have been trying to make this democracy for 35 years and it is not normal to talk about whether the elections were fair or not. By definition, they should be fair. If the elections are annulled, urgent measures must be taken on voting, on safeguarding the freedom of the vote, because after all this comes disillusionment with democracy, and this is quite dangerous and opens the door to all sorts of possible populist ideas.
