site.btaPM Proposes Grand National Assembly to Be Convened if Other Parties Fail to Form Cabinet

ESD 12:46:31 07-04-2021
LG1301ES.109
109 POLITICS - PRIME MINISTER - NEW GOVERNMENT- PROPOSAL

PM Borissov Proposes
Grand National Assembly to Be
Convened if Other Parties Fail to Form Cabinet


Sofia, April 7 (BTA) - Bulgarian Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borissov Wednesday proposed that a Grand National Assembly be convened if the other parties that will be represented in Parliament fail to form a cabinet. At the start of the regular Cabinet sitting, he congratulated the ministers on winning the April 4 general elections.

Borissov regrets that the parties of the power-sharing Patriotic Front ran on straight tickets in the elections because otherwise they would have crossed the electoral threshold.

"We can say that we have honoured absolutely all commitments and promises we have made. Based on our experience, we therefore owe it to our voters to propose a governance option," the GERB leader told the Council of Ministers.

"I see huge irresponsibility in the other political parties. Some go as far as to demand new elections, now that we have spent 150 to 160 million leva on the ones just over. We would gladly run in such [new] elections," Borissov went on to say. He argued that the parties that were against GERB and its partners of the United Democratic Forces and the Patriotic Front now have a solid majority and enough votes, so they do not need new elections. In his words, if they do not assume governance, that would mean they want to plunge the State into chaos and would show they are incapable of running the country.

"The responsibility was ours until the elections, from now on, having garnered over 500,000 votes, fellow politician [and leader of the There Is Such a People party, which came in second in the April 4l elections] Slavi Trifonov should step forward and assume responsibility," Borissov said. He called on Trifonov to start building "the complement of the government and the majority in Parliament: a National Assembly Chairperson, parliamentary committee chairs, ministers, deputy ministers, and regional governors, because that is a very difficult task and it takes time". Trifonov's party should not desert and justify that by shortage of votes; if necessary, GERB has ten MPs on standby that could support There Is Such a People, Borissov noted.

"I love my country. I want the business community to be calm, and that could happen only if there is a functioning parliament and government," the PM stressed.

If the other parties see the current political situation "as so grave and defying any solution, let the National Assembly vote to convene a Grand National Assembly and let the President table his draft constitution, not ours [GERB's], and we will start afresh," Borissov said, adding that only then would there be a point of holding elections.

"It is very easy and nice to protest, but someone has to work, and now it is their turn to do so," he added. RY/DS