site.btaDogan: "As of Today's Date, Society and State Do Not Need Early Parliamentary Elections"

December 21 (BTA) - "As of today's date, society and the
State do not need early parliamentary elections. On the
contrary, we must even do what it takes to prevent an
intra-party implosion of the incumbents," Movement for Rights
and Freedoms (MRF) Honorary Chairman Ahmed Dogan stressed in a
speech he gave to his party's elite at a New Year's Eve party.
Dogan's speech was published on the MRF website on Thursday.

"Bulgaria's strategic priority is to accelerate its development
so as to catch up with the average EU standard," Dogan argued.
He does not think that any one party has the political and
expert capacity necessary to achieve this strategic goal. The
Bulgarian Parliament as a whole, however, has this resource
because "unity makes strength", he pointed out. "Hence the
source and the form of changing the model of the country's
governance: a programmatic cabinet for Bulgaria's accelerated
catching-up development."

Dogan expressly stressed that a change of the "model" does not
presuppose a change of the "system" embedded in the country's
Constitution. "The change of the model of governance reorganizes
 the system of State power in a new way, in line with the
consensually adopted strategic goal of Bulgaria's accelerated
development," the MRF Honorary Chairman explained. In his
opinion, the political status of the parliamentary programmatic
cabinet has nothing to do with a caretaker cabinet because it
involves all parties which have won seats in the National
Assembly on clearly defined objectives for ten years and longer,
 and responding to situations and problems as they arise. In his
 words, parliamentary elections will determine the political
forces' right and weight of participation in the programmatic
cabinet.

Dogan singled out "our total nonchalance at the steady lag
behind the EU development rates" as "one of the most alarming
facts in recent years". He noted that while the State has
withdrawn from the country's economic life, it clings on to its
retrograde role as a key employer and a sanctioning factor of
business. The State must directly commit itself, as a top
priority, to promote investment and expand the market niche of
Bulgarian business instead of turning the country into a fringe
market segment for foreign manufacturers. "The extreme need of
more statehood in the economy is not protectionism. All
developed economies in Europe do it," the MRF Honorary Chairman
argued.

Dogan's assertion that society and the State do not need early
parliamentary elections as of today's date is clearly at odds
with a declaration adopted by the MRF Central Council two months
 ago and made public by MRF Chairman Mustafa Karadayi on October
 26. According to that declaration, "the executive is completely
 deadlocked", democracy and stability in this country are
endangered, and early elections are inevitable.

Reactions

"As far as a programmatic cabinet is concerned, I think that at
present we have a parliamentary majority," GERB Floor Leader and
 GERB Party Deputy Chairman Tsvetan Tsvetanov told journalists
in Parliament on Friday, commenting on Dogan's speech.

Tsvetanov added that quite a few of GERB's bills which are not
part of the governance programme are seconded in Parliament by
the opposition. He sees this as a sign of nationally responsible
 conduct of some opposition parliamentary groups.

"By votes taken in the Bulgarian Parliament on a number of
topics we have achieved precisely a national consensus. It is a
different story that the MRF's conduct is at times more
nationally responsible than the conduct of the BSP [Bulgarian
Socialist Party]," Tsvetanov said.

"In our opinion, Dogan makes a very accurate diagnosis of the
ailments of Bulgarian society but prescribes the wrong cure for
these ailments," BSP leader Kornelia Ninova told journalists in
Parliament. "We regard a programmatic cabinet backed or formed
by all parties represented in Parliament as an impossible
formula," Ninova pointed out. She specified that the formula is
impossible for two reasons: first, this Parliament has exhausted
 its credibility and, secondly, it seems impossible that the
United Patriots will sit around a table with the MRF, GERB and
the BSP. "This project is a politically incompatible because of
the difference in our programmes and personally incompatible
because of the severe contradictions within the government
majority and between the United Patriots and the MRF," she said.
 

"This country has a Cabinet, why come up with such farfetched
hypotheses," Valeri Simeonov MP of the United Patriots said,
referring to Dogan's programmatic cabinet idea and dismissing it
 as "wishful thinking". In Simeonov's opinion, Dogan's speech is
 not the most important political event of the week. RY/LG