The political crisis raging in Bulgaria for over three years is about to turn into a constitutional deadlock after President Rumen Radev refused on Monday to appoint a new caretaker government to hold early parliamentary elections.

Radev announced that he would not appoint the caretaker government with Goritsa Kozhareva as prime minister because she had nominated Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov to stay in his post, despite allegations that he has informal ties to Delyan Peevski, who is under US and UK sanctions for corruption.

With this, Radev has indefinitely postponed the formation of a regular government and snap elections in one of the EU’s poorest countries, where Russian influence on social media continues to thrive.

A large section of the parliamentary parties accuse Kalin Stoyanov, who is also the current caretaker interior minister, of working for Peevski and question whether the police will act honestly during the elections.

A week ago, police illegally shut down a satirical website ridiculing Peevski, and the interior minister refused to provide a legitimate reason for doing so.

Radev told the candidate for the new caretaker prime minister, Goritsa Kozhareva, that he would not support her candidacy because she could not guarantee a calmer political situation.

“Obviously, this is impossible if Kalin Stoyanov keeps his post as interior minister”, Radev said.

He also suggested that Kozhareva have four hours on Monday to consider it and propose another candidate for the post. Kozhareva immediately refused, arguing that the reports on Kalin Stoyanov were very good. Immediately after the ceremony at the presidential palace, she went to the prosecutor’s office to ask for an investigation into political pressure on her.

“There is no one else to propose as interior minister, so I don’t need more time to think about it,” the prime minister-designate said.

The president called on parliament to quickly find a way to create new options for appointing a caretaker prime minister and government, but the president lost his power to unilaterally decide who should be the caretaker prime minister as part of a major constitutional reform at the end of 2023.

Currently, the president can choose from 10 pre-defined options for appointing a caretaker prime minister – the speaker of the National Assembly, the governor or sub-governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, the president or deputy president of the National Audit Office and the ombudsman or their deputies.

At the same time, the protracted political crisis has left some of these positions vacant.

There is no ombudsperson or deputy ombudsman in Bulgaria, and the appointment of a person from the management of the National Bank to a political position conflicts with EU law.

Bulgaria continues to be governed by the caretaker government of Dimitar Glavchev, which has not yet indicated whether it has chosen a Bulgarian candidate for a commissioner in the future European Commission.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

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