site.btaPresident to Hand Government Mandate to There Is Such a People at 17:00 hrs on Friday

July 30 (BTA) - President Rumen Radev is going to hand
the first exploratory mandate for the formation of a government
to There Is Such a People (TISP) at 17:00 hrs on Friday. He said that to reporters in the northern town of Pleven where he will be
attending a ceremony at the Air Force Academy.

The President had said that he would wait with offering the mandate until the talks on support for the future government produce results. He said Friday that dialogue "has fallen apart".

"I gave the political parties time but you see that the constructure dialogue has fallen apart", he said. "Instead of dialogue, you hear atacks against caretaker ministers who until a while ago were being persuaded to become part of a Parliament-elected government," he added.

"Bulgaria is faced with challenges which require having a Parliament-elected government the soonest possible and it is time Bulgarian people heard the name of the prime ministerial nominee and the true intentions of the winners in the elections. This is why I am presenting an exploratory mandate to There Is Such a People at 17:00 hrs today. After that we will be following the procedure," said Radev.

With 65 seats in the 240-MP Parliament, TISP is the largest group which is why it will be the first to be asked by the President to try to form a government and they will have a week to do that. It, however, does not have a majority and will need support from the other groups to push through a government. Talks have been held with the reform-minded Democratic Bulgaria and Rise Up BG! Here We Come!, as well as the Socialist party - and one meeting with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. Only the formerly ruling GERB were kept out of the process. What seemed like a smooth negotiating process took a nasty turn on Thursday as TISP, on the one hand, and Democratic Bulgaria, on the other started communicating through declarations trading implications of catering to the interests of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

Also, TISP attacked personally the finance minister in the caretaker government, Assen Vassilev, accusing him of intellectual property theft. About a week earlier, they asked him to join a government headed by former government minister Nikolay Vassilev. That government project was subsequently abandoned after a public outcry against the prime ministerial nominee.

The caretaker Finance Minister denied the accusations and said he had won a lawsuit on that in court.


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