The ouster of the Speaker of the National Assembly Rosen Zhelyazkov is a surprising and senseless action, from which it will necessarily has political implications. What can be expected? Comment from Veselin Stoynev:
The removal of the Speaker of the National Assembly is always a political act, no matter how formally it is motivated. And whether it pursues strategic political goals or is simply an outburst of vindictive muscle show, it is bound to have political consequences. Especially at the start of an election campaign.
Surprising and pointless action
The release of Rosen Zhelyazkov is primarily a surprising and senseless action - as was the removal of Nikola Minchev from the same post two years ago.
Firstly, because it happens a day before the parliament stops working because of the Easter vacation and the election campaign - that is, this act has no practical meaning. Second, because the motives of the petitioners from "Continuing the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" (PP-DB) are for "total creativity" of Zhelyazkov as chairman - from the fact that he did not allow the withdrawn resignation of the head of the Health Fund and an attempt to prevent a minute's silence for the Armenian genocide, to violations of the rules of the parliament dating back to the beginning of last fall. When there are claims of so many wrongdoings, it is only logical that the demand for resignation should be made much earlier and not at the end of the 49th Parliament. Thirdly, the very personality of Rosen Zhelyazkov does not arouse irritation, but on the contrary - arouses respect even among those who want his resignation (in the words of Atanas Atanasov), which in itself alleviates the formal motives. Fourth, the real political motive - that Zhelyazkov did not resign on his own, as Nikolay Denkov did because of the rotation, was only hinted at from the stand (by Asen Vasilev), without it being clear whether the disintegrated "assembly" could it be restored with a rotation of the parliamentary speaker and were any steps taken at all for this.
The negatives about PP-DB
The removal of the Speaker of the Parliament will have political consequences in the medium term (according to Toma Bykov's warning). The first is that the PP-DB will go into explanatory mode as to why they are together with "Vazrazhdane", BSP and ITN (Boiko Borisov congratulated them on the "new coalition" and prophesied that 5-6 more caretaker governments are waiting for us).
The second negative for the PP-DB is that they fail to focus their attacks on the official cabinet, which is no longer in doubt that it belongs to GERB - during the debate in the hall, they started arguing with "Revival" and BSP, which formation is the real opposition to GERB.
The third negative is that this also weakens the thesis of GERB's dependence on DPS - Borisov himself stated with satisfaction that this makes it much easier for him and there will be no more questions about DPS.
GERD and DPS in isolation?
The political meaning in the course of PP-DB can be sought in two directions. The first - in the demonstration of strength after the failure of joint governance with GERB due to Borisov's dependence on Peevski (according to their own account) and the imposition of the "puppet caretaker government" (again in their words), which started a wholesale personnel change at all management levels. By ousting the Speaker of the Parliament, the PP-DB, on the one hand, are telling their voters that they have not been overthrown, and on the other hand, they are demonstrating on the political scene that they are still a key factor.
The second possible political horizon is placing GERB and DPS in isolation, so that they cannot count on taking any of the other parties in the current parliament as a coalition partner in the next National Assembly.
A third possible goal is for Rosen Zhelyazkov to be "shot" in advance. a potential candidate not only for the chairman of the 50th parliament, but also for the prime minister in a possible new "assembly" with PP-DB.
The confrontation with GERD
Regardless of how tactical (pumping muscles) and how strategic (isolation of GERB and DPS) the goals were with the "Rosen Zhelyazkov" move, it is unlikely to have the tectonic consequences of the similar opposite move two years ago. The ouster of Nikola Minchev from the post of chairman entailed the ouster of the "Kiril Petkov" cabinet. In this case, there is no such bet - the regular government fell before Zhelyazkov and a campaign is ahead, which can only exacerbate the clash between yesterday's non-coalition partners.
Desired or not quite (by all parts in PP-DB), the confrontation with GERB seems to intensify, including with the retaliatory "punitive actions" by Borisov-Peevski. The question is whether the PP-DB change the paradigm from "we want to free Borisov from his dependence on Peevski in order to continue with a new assembly" with "we want to tie Borisov to Peevski even tighter, because we can't untie them anyway". And what will follow from this - will the voter finally not decide more definitively to tilt the scales in one direction or the other (to PP-DB or to GERB) or will the political stalemate become concrete and after June there will be another election in the end of the year. In any case, in the foreseeable future, the chances of political stabilization of Bulgaria do not seem great.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial team and of DV as a whole.