Democratic Bulgaria (DB) co-leader Hristo Ivanov believes that President Rumen Radev is unofficially forming a "party of power" ahead of the local elections in the autumn. On Saturday, the DB press office quoted Ivanov as saying on Darik Radio: "The President is forming an unregistered party of power. It is no secret that his team is set to stand very prominently in the local elections." Ivanov spoke about "informal contacts in Plovdiv" which also concern the judicial system.
He said: "It is disturbing that President Radev has spent two years accumulating power in the state administration, and that the figure of the president, which is thought to be constitutionally weak, has turned out to be very strong due to the rise of a constitutional backup model, which was conceived as just a temporary device. The main risk is that it is unclear whether the caretaker government appointed by the President is controlled by him, and if so, how. Therefore, a regular parliamentary government will put an end to the irresponsible caretaker government and will invalidate the throwback to the period when Bulgaria was, figuratively, the 16th republic of the Soviet Union."
According to Ivanov, there is not much chance of success of the first government-forming mandate, granted by President Radev to the election-winning GERB-UDF coalition. He feels that GERB's actions are more of an attempt to protect the party's reputation rather than a sincere push to fulfil the mandate. He expressed doubt about the functional potential of a possible minority government of GERB-UDF, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and There Is Such a People.
Ivanov went on to say that GERB-UDF's choice of European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel as Prime Minister-designate was intended to give Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) a reason to go back on their pledge not to support the first government-forming mandate. But CC-DB do not have the flexibility and the acrobatic skills of GERB, he noted. "We are not being stubborn. We are being consistent," he said.
Ivanov explained that CC-DB find it important to form a government under the second (their own) mandate, because the mandate-holder gets to name the prime minister. The prime minister will be in a position to dissolve the government if it breaks its promise of reform. "We want to make sure that the constitutional reform we are talking about goes all the way to the point where it is promulgated in the Official Gazette." Ivanov is certain that their candidate Nikolai Denkov will resign as future prime minister if the reform goes wrong.
The controversy surrounding Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev has convinced almost all parties that a constitutional reform of the prosecution service is imperative, but the trouble is that corruption can foil the plan, Ivanov argued. According to him, there must be guarantees that the future government will solve the fundamental problem of corruption. Otherwise, public money will be embezzled and Bulgaria will be unable to join the Schengen border-free area or the Eurozone.
"The question now is not only about the government but also about changing Bulgarian politics," Ivanov said. "Sobered by a terrible situation, we need to make responsible decisions and carry them out, and hope that God helps us. No one holds any trump cards, we all have our backs against the wall. This country can succeed spectacularly, or it can fail spectacularly. There is no middle way."
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