site.btaGERB Leader Hopes Bulgaria Will Have Government August 26

GERB leader Boyko Borissov told reporters in Svishtov, on the Danube, on Friday he was hopeful that a government would be formed on August 26, as the ongoing political crisis is bound to deepen. Caretaker Prime Minister-designate Dimitar Glavchev is expected to make public his proposal for a cabinet on Monday.

Borissov praised President Rumen Radev and Glavchev for "finding strength".

Glavchev was the only one of the seven senior officials, eligible to become caretaker Prime Minister, who was offered the position and accepted.

Borissov stated that he does not interfere and is not willing to interfere with any caretaker government's operations. Commenting on Radev's refusal to decree a new caretaker cabinet proposed by then prime minister-designate Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva because of Kalin Stoyanov's nomination for caretaker interior minister, Borissov said: "I do not care at all who the interior minister will be. I just want them to protect the border properly, [to address] domestic crime, organized crime, drug trafficking."

Borissov believes that the choice of another interior minister in the current environment will not be easy and added: "I do not know which professional among those who can more or less be ministers and know the system would agree to become a minister for two or three months. Then [when their term is over] they get tossed in the trash. Then they become unemployable. This is a meat grinder for people and their careers."

Borissov commented a blacklist of teachers who have openly opposed new anti-LGBTQ legislation, which list was made public by the Varna chapter of the nationalist Vazrazhdane party on Thursday with calls for a crackdown against them. Borissov suggested that this was "a campaign stint" aimed to "inflate the Vazrazhdane electorate". He called for focusing "on the important issues and problems to be solved, including water supply disruptions, the unfinished Hemus Motorway, the Ruse-Veliko Tarnovo road, instead of seeking divisions and exchanging lists of teachers".