Can Bulgaria find a prime minister whom no one can call and order what to do? Who would agree? Comment by Emilia Milcheva.
A puppet on strings or a politician for prime minister – this is the dilemma facing the parties that are starting negotiations with GERB to implement the first mandate. The question of who will be the prime minister has once again taken center stage on the agenda, after the political forces in the 51st parliament managed to elect a chairman after exhausting one-month voting.
Now several of them are embarking on negotiations for a regular government, while the clock for implementing the first mandate is symbolically "frozen". President Rumen Radev is expected to hand it over at the end of 2024 or even in the new year 2025, after GERB leader Boyko Borisov requested a postponement.
The potential participants, in addition to GERB-SDF, are one wing of the PP-DB coalition - "Democratic Bulgaria" (DB), BSP - United Left and "There is Such a People" (ITN), whose votes total 126. Theoretically, they could form a majority. The last three formations do not accept the nomination of GERB leader Boyko Borisov as prime minister, but Borisov himself and his party view this option as an opportunity to be withdrawn and traded as a compromise.
And here, even before it is known what the negotiators would agree on, this ghostly figure appears again, who will be proposed by GERB, but will have to receive the approval of everyone. If they agree at all.
Wanting puppets?
Hardly a reasonable person would agree to take on the role of prime minister in a cabinet composed of formations with incompatible ideologies, but generally right-wing and national-patriotic (left). Let's imagine: implementing a program in the preparation of which he did not participate; leading a team of ministers that he did not select; and bearing responsibility for decisions dictated by political considerations. In such a situation, the prime minister does not need exceptional qualities – he simply needs to be submissive. A puppet. The compensation for the inconvenience will probably be generous, but the burden of the compromise remains.
Over the past weekend, politicians from GERB and DB tried to outline the profile of the prime minister of a government for which there is still no concept.
On the Bulgarian National Radio, Bozhidar Bozhanov (DB) described him as follows - not a bright political figure, not polarizing, equidistant. "The profile of the prime minister should be a person whom no one can call and order him what to do. Each of the parties should have good communication with him and everything should be discussed."
DB Co-Chairman Atanas Atanasov imagines him as "a party-neutral banker or a respected lawyer". But in front of Nova TV, his colleague from the State Duma, Dr. Alexander Simidchiev, painted a different portrait - he may be "a person from GERB, but be sufficiently expert and not susceptible to political influence", using the formulation mutually acceptable (because the definition "equidistant" was geographical).
However, if the votes of the PP (which do not participate in the negotiations) also want it, the prime minister must be equidistant and not a politician from GERB, as explained by the co-chairman of "We Continue the Change" Kiril Petkov.
The utopia of "a party-neutral prime minister"
If we assume that there is a "party-neutral" and at the same time successful person in Bulgaria, then his career is due solely to his own qualities – without political patronage and power dependence on a political leader or oligarch. And a person with his own integrity does not guarantee party loyalty. But such a professional has no logical reason to leave his successful career to wade in the political mud. He would not pick up the phone to take orders from politicians – which automatically makes him unsuitable by default. And who would understand if he picked up and took an order from the Boss, for example.
The party-neutral prime minister should choose his own ministers - it is unthinkable that he would be allowed to do so in the current situation.
Bankers who know politicians are well-known, their careers started in politics or thanks to it. One such person has been living in Belgrade for a long time, and the case of the bankrupt Corpbank has never budged. As for lawyers, the question is who respects them. Regulators in Bulgaria, for example, are run by lawyers whose qualities are known only in the political circles that put them there.
GERB assures that they are sincere in their intention to form a regular cabinet. However, whether or not it is signed by Borisov's party, the declaration of a cordon sanitaire around Delyan Peevski and DPS-New Beginning will be on the negotiating table - and the mechanisms for its transformation into legislative measures and through filling and renewing the hundred positions in regulators and the judiciary.
If the four political forces manage to reach an agreement by the New Year - despite the punitive repression of the prosecutor's office, the future prime minister will have to be chosen on a single criterion: how resistant he is to pressure. Because there will be pressure from both the parties that support him and the political players who want him to fail.
***
This comment expresses the author's personal opinion and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Duma as a whole.