site.btaOutgoing Prosecutor General to Be Nominated to Head Anti-Corruption Commission

ESD 16:30:31 19-11-2019
ZH1628ES.122
122 POLITICS - PROSECUTOR GENERAL - ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION

Outgoing Prosecutor General to Be
Nominated
to Head Anti-Corruption Commission


Sofia, November 19 (BTA) - Outgoing Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov will be nominated by the power-holding GERB party to head the anti-corruption and criminal asset forfeiture commission. An official announcement about the pending nomination was made by the leadership of the parliamentary groups of GERB and their junior partner in the government coalition, the United Patriots, at a news conference on Tuesday.

The nomination will be submitted later on Tuesday, day ahead of the deadline.

Tsatsarov was seen in Parliament but was not with the GERB and United Patriots deputies when they made the announcement.

Another nomination for the same job has been made: Volya has put forward the nomination of MP Simeon Naydenov.

The office of the chairman of the anti-corruption commission has been vacant since July 2019 when a property scandal forced the then chair, Plamen Georgiev, to resign. After he left the commission, he became rank-and-file prosecutor but shortly after that the government appointed him Bulgarian Consul in Valencia and he left for Spain.

There have been rumours about Tsatsarov's pending nomination as Georgiev's successor but the political forces refused to confirm them. Press reports even said that the power-holders were in a rush to secure a successor for Tsatsarov in order to ensure his smooth exit from the office of prosecutor general.

Tsatsarov's deputy in the Prosecutor General's office, Ivan Geshev, was elected by the Supreme Judicial Council to be Bulgaria's next top prosecutor but President Rumen Radev has been dragging his feet about decreeing his appointment.

Tsatsarov's tenure as Prosecutor General expires in January 2020. MORE/