site.btaParliament Discusses Denkov Cabinet

The National Assembly began debating here on Tuesday, after Prime Minister designate Nikolay Denkov of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) presented the priorities, the structure and composition of the draft cabinet.

MP Nikolay Drenchev of Vazrazhdane said that his party will not support the cabinet. He specified that Denkov was a familiar figure from three previous cabinets, when he was the Minister of Education, and his Ministry had been turned into "a printing press for documents with false content".

GERB-UDF Deputy Floor Leader Denitsa Sacheva said that there is fragile understanding between her coalition and CC-DB, however, there is a majority for changes in the Constitution, judicial reform, and for affirming Bulgaria's path in Europe. She said it was time to have a regular government and a clear separation of powers.

Grozdan Karadjov of There Is Such a People called the proposed government "a coalition of lies". Karadjov quoted members of CC-DB, who said that they would never coalesce with GERB leader Boyko Borissov. Karadjov said: "Apparently, this entire game of revolution, all the talk about restarting the state, fighting corruption, uprooting the GERB model was just a bunch of nonsense".

Independent MP Radostin Vasilev said that this was a sad day for Bulgaria, as the new government will cover corruption schemes, while CC no longer has an ideology. Vasilev will vote against the Cabinet.

Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Korneliya Ninova said that while Bulgarian history knows political compromises in the name of Bulgaria, what is happening today is not a political compromise and it is not done in the name of Bulgaria. In her words, this is a vote for a cabinet of two behind-the-scenes cohorts in the name of their own survival. "We will not support this coalition, this club of interests, this coalition of immunities, of war," she stated.