The decision of the GERB nominee for Prime Minister Maria Gabriel to propose a government with the first mandate, without this having been agreed with their previous partners from “Continuing the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” (PP-DB) and without asking the consent of their cadres to become ministers , raises questions about what will happen to the proposed draft cabinet.
On Tuesday evening, the PP-DB ministers already announced as part of the draft cabinet declared that they do not want to participate in Gabriel’s government. These are the current Prime Minister in resignation Nikolay Denkov, the co-chairman of the PP and Minister of Finance Asen Vasilev, the Regional Minister Andrey Tsekov, the Minister of Agriculture Kiril Vatev, the Minister of Justice Atanas Slavov, the Minister of Economy Bogdan Bogdanov, the Minister of Social Affairs Ivanka Shalapatova, the Minister of Transport Georgi Gvozdeikov, the Minister of tourism Zaritsa Dinkova, sports minister Dimitar Iliev, as well as the proposed health minister Katya Paneva.
From the statements of GERB leader Boyko Borisov, and from the words of Nikolay Denkov from PP and the co-chairman of DB Atanas Atanasov on Wednesday, however, it seems that everything is penultimate and despite yesterday’s escalation of tension, negotiations can still be reached.
PP-DB ministers cannot be held hostage
Although the request not to be candidates for ministers was given by more than half of the people in the “Gabriel” draft cabinet, their declaration does not mean that the mandate has failed. It does not mean that they will be elected ministers, despite their will, if in the meantime the situation does not change and they do not think.
According to decision number 20 of the Constitutional Court of 1992, there may be changes in the draft government after its presentation to the president and before its vote in the plenary hall:
“The fact of proposing the structure and composition of the government means the presence of “consent” for its formation. In this sense, the structure and composition of the Council of Ministers presented to the president are not subject to his control. Therefore, the presentation itself is sufficient to establish, that the mandate has ended successfully, and it is a reason to propose to the National Assembly to elect this candidate. However, it is not excluded that in the time between the submission of the proposal to the National Assembly and the holding of the election, changes may be imposed in the composition of the government presented to the President. Regardless whether they are caused by practical or political considerations, it is permissible to make such changes and they do not constitute a violation of the procedure for forming a government established in the Constitution”.
This leaves the possibility of reshuffles before the vote, if GERB and PP-DB do decide to resume negotiations for the first mandate and agree on an unsigned governance document. Until the end, the two parties did not reach an agreement on the issue of posts in the energy and defense sectors. The PP-DB insisted that the current ministers Rumen Radev and Todor Tagarev remain in these two ministries. But Borisov’s party wanted to put its MPs Zhecho Stankov and Hristo Gadjev, who are also part of the proposed composition.
And if GERB and PP-DB do not agree on the first mandate, but Borisov decides to try to push the government through the National Assembly anyway, the ministers of PP-DB should be replaced because of their declaration that they do not want to be part of the cabinet of Gabriel.
Even if the negotiations between the two parties for the Gabriel cabinet remain unsuccessful, this does not necessarily mean that the first term is a failure.
In theory, it is possible for GERB to decide to look for another majority, which, however, cannot be presented as Euro-Atlantic, because it would include parties such as BSP or “Vazrazhdane”. However, this will be difficult to explain. Especially considering how at the beginning of the month, when Borisov tried to guarantee the role of DPS in the selection of some of the regulators, GERB pulled out the card that support should be sought only from “political formations with a clearly expressed Euro-Atlantic orientation and values “.
In addition, for now the opposition parties BSP, ITN and “Vazrazhdane” say that they do not support the draft government of GERB. The DPS has already announced that they like Gabriel’s cabinet and praised her and Borisov that by offering a cabinet, they are acting “responsibly towards the people and the state, saving it from the timelessness of caretaker governments and the political crisis”.
However, only the support of the DPS is not enough, unless some opposition MPs decide to “reduce” the quorum. A government is elected by a simple majority – i.e. with the votes of more than half of the deputies present. However, GERB and DPS have a total of only 105 deputies, which means that as many as 31 people’s representatives from other formations should not be in the hall, and this seems difficult to implement.
And there are several options for an unsuccessful first term
Therefore, at the moment, the most realistic option seems to be that GERB’s mandate will fail, but this can happen in several ways.
The usual procedure for this to happen, after Radev’s mandate has already been returned, is for Gabriel’s nomination for prime minister to be put to a vote in the plenary hall and rejected. Thus, the constitutional procedure will continue with the handing over of the second exploratory mandate to PP-DB.
In 2021, however, we also saw an “unusual” way to declare a mandate failed after it had been returned to the president as fulfilled.
The ITN then received a first exploratory mandate to form a government and proposed the composition of the Council of Ministers, although they did not have support. After that, the showman Slavi Trifonov announced that his party will not submit the proposed draft composition for voting in the plenary hall. ITN Prime Minister candidate Plamen Nikolov withdrew his consent to be elected to the post for “personal reasons”, but this did not solve the problem because the procedure in the parliament was not completed. However, the presidency announced that they will not proceed with handing out the mandates until there is a decision of the parliament, and ITN insisted that there should not be one.
The case came to an end after the parliament took a special decision stating that the first mandate had ended unsuccessfully.
The “Stanishev” scenario
It is possible that if a draft cabinet is voted on in the plenary hall, another development will be reached – the majority will elect Gabriel as prime minister, but will not support the government proposed by her.
This has happened before in Bulgarian politics – nearly 20 years ago. After the elections in June 2005, BSP became the first political force, and NDSV remained second. President Georgi Parvanov gave a mandate to form a socialist government.
BSP’s negotiations with NDSV and DPS failed due to disputes over who should be prime minister, how to distribute the ministries, etc.
In the end, it came to a draft cabinet of the first and third political forces – BSP and DPS. During the government’s vote in the National Assembly, Sergey Stanishev’s candidacy for prime minister was approved, but the composition of the government was not adopted.
Then the mandate was considered unfulfilled and the constitutional procedure did not start again, but continued. This is also foreseen in decision number 20 of the Constitutional Court of 1992.
The president then handed the second mandate to the NDSV, which refused to form a government.
This is how we get to the third and last mandate for a government. DPS got it. The movement, BSP and NDSV had already reached an agreement. Stanishev still became Prime Minister, the three political forces each received a Deputy Prime Minister.
However, it now seems very unlikely that a government will be formed with the third mandate, even if it is obtained by the DPS.
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