The construction of Bulgaria's 11th caretaker cabinet by another caretaker prime minister will differ from the previous ones only in its distance from some political circles, and closeness to others. The question is which ones. Certainly not those related to the still-serving Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, who became unacceptable. Close to GERB - to the party he owes his career as a politician and chairman of the Audit Chamber, Glavchev attracted attention with the frequent changes of regional governors and their deputies from the DPS, who announced support for Ahmed Dogan and the “authentic DPS” - meaning those who rebelled against the co-president Delyan Peevski.
The DPS politician, sanctioned for corruption by the USA and Great Britain, began to attack President Rumen Radev, threatening to reveal corruption schemes related to his advisor and even publishing a “list of Mr. Cash's treasurers in energy”. For this reason or another, but Radev chose not to hear the agreement for an acting prime minister, publicly announced by the deputy governor of the BNB, Petar Chobanov, from the DPS quota (and with the support of GERB and PP-DB).
The free choice of the president
The head of state decided on one of Glavchev's deputies in the Audit Chamber - Gorica Grancharova-Kozhareva, whose consent was heard most quietly and came after Chobanov's request. In the “domestic book”, as the ten persons listed in the Constitution, from among whom the president can choose an acting prime minister, became known, the vice-chairmen of the Audit Chamber are the last in the series.
But the Constitution does not specify how the president should act if a few of the ten give consent, nor whether he is obliged to ask in the order in which they are listed - although he started with the first one, which is the Speaker of the Parliament (Raya Nazaryan). So Rumen Radev has a choice - to show his free will, and he chose Grancharova-Kozhareva, who in April refused, but only 4 months later declared her readiness to take the post.
Her career at the Audit House began in 2011, and four years later the united in the “Patriotic Front” VMRO and NFSB, supporting the second government of GERB and Boyko Borisov, promoted her to the chair of the institution. The support was not enough, but she entered the administration, proposed as a deputy together with Toshko Todorov by the then head of the Audit Chamber Tsvetan Tsvetkov. According to BNR, political scientist Ognyan Minchev commented that “Grancharova is obviously a choice that reflects the current balance of power between the main oligarchic factors in Bulgaria”. Along with her nomination, the fact that she is the wife of the former prosecutor and former member of the Supreme Judicial Council Mikhail Kozharev, whose support for the former chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev was public, is recalled.
There are no random people in the leadership of Bulgarian institutions, they are usually a function of a party or a choice of circles with which political power is connected.
Who will be the interior minister
Does it matter who will be the Minister of the Interior, since he will manage - temporarily - a system that has not been reformed, where the “umbrellas” over criminals are revealed when they kill them - or they kill them, where a bunch of bureaucrats do work that can be done online, and the huge budget goes to the salaries of a bloated state.
During elections, however, the role of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is essential, as it depends on its work to ensure the fairness and transparency of the vote, which is also the main task of the caretaker government. The Ministry of the Interior must prevent election manipulations and violations, undertake – or not to take, action against vote buying or controlled voting. Depending on who runs the ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs can “prevent” some vote buyers and not hook others, investigate some reports of election violations - such as vote buying, threats to voters, forgeries, and ignore others.
The Ministry of the Interior cannot - or does not want - to answer how Evelin Banev-Brendo, convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering, entered Bulgaria, nor how one of the “Galevi brothers”, who died in his homeland, did it. But the Ministry of the Interior can influence the electoral process, and it is no coincidence that each new minister changes the heads of directorates in the province. The one Gorica Grancharova will choose will probably do it too. After a conversation with her, the current one - Kalin Stoyanov, hinted that he may no longer be the head of the Ministry of the Interior.
Unions in the Ministry of Internal Affairs rushed to support his remaining in office, and today in Sofia police officers will protest because of “unprecedented attempt to use the Ministry of Internal Affairs” - another attempt to exert pressure for its preservation.
"The First Test"
„The first test for Gorica Grancharova is who will be her proposal for Interior Minister”, reads a post of the co-chairman of “We continue the change” Kiril Petkov in social networks. “If it is Kalin Stoyanov, Atanas Ilkov or Stoyan Temelakiev, it will only mean one thing: Delyan Peevski appoints the ministers in her cabinet as well”. Someone will do it…
According to bTV and “24 hours” Chances to keep their seats in the next official cabinet are the Minister of Finance Lyudmila Petkova, the Minister of Education - Galin Tsokov, and the Minister of Culture - Nayden Todorov, who also held this position in the President's official offices. The name of Ivan Kondov, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs in Galab Donev's second cabinet from May 3 to June 6, 2023, is being proposed for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
By the August 19 deadline, all names will be clear to gauge who the future caretaker government is. Regardless of the changes in the Constitution, it will still be “someone” - each of the “home book” is indebted to the political power that raised him to a high position.