Bulgaria's parliamentary elections postponed amidst political crisis

Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev has rejected the new caretaker government put forward by the interim prime minister Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva, saying it won’t guarantee that parliamentary elections, that were scheduled for October 20th, will be fair.

Grancharova-Kozhareva presented her choice of cabinet ministers, which included Kalin Stoyanov keeping his position as the Interior Minister.

But the President demanded Grancharova-Kozhareva replace Stoyanov, claiming his remaining in office would not guarantee the holding of fair elections in Bulgaria.

When Grancharova-Kozhareva refused to do so, Radev announced he would not sign the necessary decree to authorise her choice of cabinet ministers.

“I will not sign the decree appointing my proposed government, and therefore your commitment to forming one is over,” Radev told Grancharova-Kozhareva at their meeting at the President’s building in Sofia.

According to local media, Grancharova-Kozhareva said she was to hand a report to the Prosecutor-General’s office, relating how she said she’d come under political pressure to replace Stoyanov in her cabinet.

Local media also reported that police gathered around the President’s building to hold up signs of support for Stoyanov who, as the interior minister is effectively their boss.

Bulgaria’s parliament held snap elections in June — the sixth time in three years that Bulgarians have voted. Despite the repeated elections, the country has struggled to create a stable government.

Radev’s rejection of Grancharova-Kozhareva’s cabinet means the elections are now indefinitely postponed. 

The Bulgarian president’s decision is unprecedented and the constitutional experts are divided as to whether the issue is a constitutional one, a political one, or both.

“The crisis is not constitutional, the crisis is political, and it has arisen from the National Assembly’s inability to provide a complete list (of candidates) from which the president should choose, as stipulated in the constitutional text,” says Natalia Kselova, a constitutional expert.

Orlin Kolev, another constitutional legal expert, said MPs should force the president to sign a decree.

“What the MPs can do is to somehow put public and political pressure on the President to start implementing and applying the fifth paragraph of the Constitution as it is written, and not in the way he wants,” Kolev said.