site.btaUPDATED MECh Leader Radostin Vasilev: Parliamentary Chair’s Decision to Dissolve Party’s Parliamentary Group Unlawful

The decision made by Parliament Chair Nataliya Kiselova to dissolve the MECh parliamentary group does not comply with the law, said MECh party leader Radostin Vasilev in an interview for Bulgarian National Radio here on Sunday. He suggested that the decision could be corrected next Wednesday and speculated that Kiselova was either unprepared or under pressure. 

Vassilev claimed that he has a recording of a conversation with Kiselova, in which she allegedly told him she was under pressure after the MECh group was reduced to nine MPs. According to him, this happened an hour after a meeting of National Assembly Presiding Council last Wednesday, when a decision was made for the new MECh MPs to be sworn in on Friday.

"A parliamentary group dissolves when someone leaves or is expelled," Vasilev pointed out. He also suggested that amendments to parliamentary rules of procedure could be considered to address this issue.

Vasilev added that a vote of no confidence in the government is being considered due to its overall policies.

"On Wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m., we are calling for a national 'protest against the mafia.' If the National Assembly Presiding Council does not resolve the MECh issue by 8:30 a.m., something worse than a Serbian scenario will unfold in Parliament," Vasilev warned.

On Friday morning, following a 22-hour parliamentary session, Kiselova announced that the MECh parliamentary group was officially dissolved. According to Parliament’s rules of procedure, a minimum of ten MPs are required to form a parliamentary group. Currently, MECh has only nine members after the resignation of MP Samuil Slavov was formally accepted by Parliament on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Central Election Commission declared Plamen Angelov Petkov, nominated by MECh, as a new MP in the 51st National Assembly. He is set to replace Samuil Slavov but has not yet been sworn in.

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MP Martin Dimitrov from Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria told BNR on Sunday that the MECh parliamentary group must be reinstated, and such things should not happen in Bulgarian politics.  

According to Dimitrov, Kiselova must provide an explanation regarding the issue. "There was no need for this to happen in the National Assembly," he added. Despite the ideological differences with Radostin Vasilev, Dimitrov emphasized that what happened to MECh is unacceptable.

There Is Such a People Floor Leader Toshko Yordanov told Bulgarian National TV Sunday that Kiselova may be right formally, but the National Assembly’s rules of procedure have been violated.

"The more interesting part in this case is that they lost three MPs, two were supposed to enter. A new one appeared, took the oath in Parliament, and it turned out that he had been involved in stealing bank cards or something like that in the United States [referring to the bird.bg investigative journalism website’s revelations that Samuil Slavov, who resigned as MECh MP, had been arrested and served time in jail in the US for ATM skimming]. And they removed him as well. In other words, they removed their new person, not someone that the Constitutional Court (CC) had pointed out should leave, and they ended up in this situation with nine people," commented Yordanov.

So, purely formally, Ms. Kiselova may be right and the rules of procedure may have been violated, he said, adding that they may need to be revised because this is an extraordinary situation.

According to him, there are elegant ways to resolve this situation without an apocalypse.

Yordanov believes that the Parliament Chair should make some kind of decision on the case. "If there is a Presiding Council where this can be discussed, we will attend and discuss it," he said. "I am not a lawyer, and from an outsider's perspective, the regulations have formally been followed," he stated.

Yordanov denied that the parliamentary majority had discussed changing the rules of the National Assembly so that parliamentary groups would need to consist of 12 members, which would allow for the isolation of Velichie and MECh, preventing them from having parliamentary groups.

According to him, the fall of the government can only happen if those within the ruling majority bring it down.

"Failure to follow procedures should lead to punishment," said Alexander Simov, a member of the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), during a press statement Sunday. According to Simov, the decision to dissolve MECh’s parliamentary group, announced by Kiselova, came after a series of conversations in which MECh was warned that such a problem existed. In his words, it is inappropriate for MECh to now react like "offended teenagers."

When asked about Vasilev’s claims that he had a recording in which Kiselova allegedly said she was under pressure, Simov stated that he hadn’t heard of such a recording. "There are always some recordings around Radostin Vasilev," he commented. 

The BSP National Council issued a position Sunday, expressing the party's firm support for the actions of National Assembly Chair Kiselova.

"We do not accept political attacks against someone who adheres to the Constitution, the rules of procedure of the National Assembly, and the laws of the country. The place for debate should be in the National Assembly hall, not in the media. The BSP strongly opposes the cynical language that diminishes political dialogue and Bulgarian parliamentary democracy, and we will not allow ourselves to be part of it," the party said.

The MECh party will organize a national protest on Wednesday, March 26 in front of the National Assembly, the party's press centre said later on Sunday.