#radev is the only one that's been round

[beardedmrbean]

Bulgarian President Roumen Radev has signed the decree making personnel changes to the Cabinet of caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, less than two weeks after the caretaker government took office.

In a short statement on April 22, the president’s media office said that Radev issued the decree based on the requests made by Glavchev.

Glavchev will assume the foreign affairs portfolio in addition to his duties as caretaker Prime Minister, replacing Stefan Dimitrov, and Georgi Takhov will be the new agriculture minister in place of Kiril Vatev.

After Glavchev’s initial nominee to take over as Foreign Minister, GERB deputy leader Daniel Mitov, withdrew before the weekend, the caretaker Prime Minister nominated himself for the job.

Radev, who had described the proposal as “avant-garde” at the weekend, was due to meet with Glavchev on April 22 to discuss the proposed changes to the caretaker Cabinet’s line-up.

However, the meeting did not take place, with media reports saying that Glavchev decided against it. Instead, the caretaker PM made a formal request to be appointed caretaker Foreign Minister.

This is the latest in a number of changes executed by the caretaker government.

Its first act after taking office on April 9 was to request President Roumen Radev to decree the dismissal of Zhivko Kotsev from the post of Interior Ministry chief secretary. Radev signed the decree the following day.

On April 17, prosecutors charged Kotsev with alleged participation in an organised crime group along with former Customs Agency head Petya Bankova and business people Stefan and Martin Dimitrov.

Bankova, also earlier dismissed by the caretaker government, faces an additional charge of coercion. All the accused deny wrongdoing, and critics have claimed that the steps against them are politically-motivated.

National Revenue Agency deputy head Georgi Dimov was appointed to head the Customs Agency.

The first changes to deputy ministers came on April 10 when Glavchev appointed Metodi Metodiev, Stefan Belchev and Martin Danovski as deputy ministers of finance.

On April 10, caretaker Regional Development and Public Works Minister Violeta Koritarova fired Yassen Yordanov as head of the Road Infrastructure Agency after an internal audit found allegedly illegal actions.

April 11 saw the caretaker government dismiss Petar Petrov as deputy head of the State Agency for National Security. Petrov had been appointed to the post in July 2023 in the first month in office of the Nikolai Denkov government.

On April 12, Spaska Kincheva was appointed deputy minister of justice, while Emil Dechev and Yuliya Kovacheva were dismissed from their deputy ministerial posts at the ministry.

The same day, Stoyan Temelakiev and Tony Todorov were appointed to replace Kiril Tsenkin and Ivelina Dundakova as deputy interior ministers.

Also on April 12, Tihomir Stoychev and Elena Shekerletova were dismissed as deputy ministers of foreign affairs. Maria Angelieva and Colonel Nevyana Miteva, a former vice presidential candidate on the GERB ticket that was headed by Atanas Gerdzhikov in Bulgaria’s 2021 presidential elections, were appointed to replace them.

April 12 also saw Koritarova fire Delyana Panayotova as acting head of the National Construction Control Directorate, replacing her with Lilyana Petrova. Panayotova became acting head of the directorate in August 2022, replacing Petrova, who had held the post from December 31 2021.

On April 16, Glavchev dismissed Vladya Borissova as head of the Patent Office. Borissova had held the post since June 2021, when she was appointed by the Stefan Yanev caretaker government. Olya Dimitrova was named as her replacement.

The same day, David Sukalinski was appointed deputy minister of economy and industry and Ivan Kapitanov as deputy minister of agriculture and food. Alexander Yotsev and Georgi Toshev, respective holders of those posts, were dismissed.

On April 17, it was announced that Denitsa Zlateva had resigned as chief executive of Bulgargaz. The Bulgarian Energy Holding appointed Vesselin Sinabov in her place. In 2017, Zlateva was caretaker deputy prime minister in the Ognyan Gerdzhikov interim administration and is a former Bulgarian Socialist Party MP. She was appointed Bulgargaz chief executive in August 2022.

Dimitar Spassov and Tatyana Petrova-Boyadzhieva were dismissed from Bulgargaz’s board, and Mihail Milkov, Byanka Racheva and Marin Filipovski appointed to it.

On April 19, the caretaker government appointed Maria Neikova as district governor of Bourgas, dismissing Plamen Yanev from the post. Neikov has held the post twice before, from May 2021 to January 2022 and from August 2022 to July 2023, both times as the appointee of caretaker governments. Yanev was appointed by the Denkov government in July 2023.

Also on April 19, Martin Gikov was dismissed as deputy minister of innovation and growth, Nikolai Sidzhimov as deputy minister of environment and water, Nikolai Naydenov and Ginka Mashova as deputy ministers of labour and social policy, Viktor Stoyanov as deputy culture minister and Marieta Georgieva as deputy minister of education and science.

That day, six deputy ministers were appointed: Boiko Penkov and Dobromira Kareva as deputy ministers of health, Ilko Ganev deputy minister of culture, Pavlin Petrov deputy minister of tourism, Viktor Atanasov deputy minister of environment and water and Georgi Samandov as deputy minister of energy.

And on April 22, Finance Minister Lyudmila Petkova appointed Georgi Yordanov as the director of the Public Financial Inspection Agency. Yordanov, who was chief of staff to former GERB Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov between 2014 and 2020, replaced Ilka Dimova, who had been in office since February.

[mariacallous]

Bulgaria is bracing for snap elections: after weeks of tension between the two blocs of the country’s governing coalition, GERB on Monday said the planned rotation of power won’t go any further and it will return the government-forming mandate unfulfilled. 

Designated Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel blamed GERB’s coalition partners’ “coordinated refusal and unwillingness to participate in a cabinet” as the main reason for the failure of the talks.

Last week, We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria criticised GERB for announcing a project cabinet which had not been coordinated with them.

“Was a functioning judicial system, functioning regulators and reformed national security services the whole problem all along?”, We Continue the Change leader Kiril Petkov said on Monday on his socials, hinting at deeper reasons for GERB’s reluctance to implement reforms.

The current cabinet was established in June, following a two-year stalemate which yielded five general elections and a short-lived cabinet, again headed by We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria. 

The coalition, consisting of two opposing blocs – GERB/UDF and We Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria –  agreed on a strategy that would see the first nine months governed by Denkov of We Continue the Change and then replaced by GERB’s Gabriel, with further rotations between them until the end of the mandate. 

Gabriel, a former EU Commissioner, returned to local politics last year as a fresh face for GERB, at a moment when the party was increasingly dogged by corruption allegations and in need of a rebrand. With Boyko Borissov, GERB leader and a Prime Minister for much of 2008-2020, temporarily putting himself in the backstage, Gabriel was appointed Foreign Minister and was expected to succeed Denkov in the Prime Minister’s position after the rotation. 

Now the rotation strategy seems doomed. GERB’s decision essentially sends Bulgaria to another round of elections, while voters are increasingly election-weary. 

When GERB returns the mandate to President Rumen Radev, he will hand it to the second force in the parliament, the alliance of We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, who have no chance of mustering a majority without GERB’s support. 

In that case, the President must select a party of his own. During the 2021-2023 election spiral, this was always the pro-Moscow Socialist Party, BSP, which has supported his two presidential campaigns. 

However, on Monday, BSP clarified that even if Radev hands it a mandate, it won’t attempt to form a cabinet. “Knowing [GERB leader] Borissov, who talks one thing in the morning, a second by noon and has a third different position by evening, I think that all options for a government have been dried up,” Georgi Svilenski of the BSP told the media, describing Bulgaria’s politics as a “schizophrenic situation”. 

Outgoing PM Denkov on Sunday accused GERB of “sending the country into chaos”.

The looming dissolution of the coalition has been welcomed by nationalist and pro-Russia parties. “This criminal gang has compromised Bulgaria’s politics and parliamentarianism – new elections is the best outcome”, far-right Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov said.

According to the Central Election Committee, only 40.56 per cent of Bulgarians voted in the last general elections in April 2023, which were followed by the mayoral elections with a turnout of 36.04 per cent.