site.btaMECh to Refrain from Backing Any Candidate for Parliament Leader

The MECh party will no longer support any of the nominees for National Assembly Chair after backing all but one at the start of the procedure on Monday. “We will refrain from backing anyone,” MECh leader Radostin Vasilev told journalists in the corridors of the National Assembly on Wednesday.

According to Vasilev, the nominee of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), Andrei Tsekov, reached the second round of voting owing to the votes from MECh.

Earlier on Wednesday, the MPs made another attempt to elect a National Assembly Chair but failed. The parliamentary sitting will resume on Friday at 11 AM.

Wednesday’s attempt was unsuccessful, too, because GERB is clearly unable to gather support for its candidate, Vasilev said. “We also see inability in Continue the Change,” he added. MECh wanted the sitting to continue on Thursday, but the Council of Presidents chose Friday. GERB asked to wait for a week, Vasilev said. “We firmly rejected the idea because we think that GERB is holding talks in the dark, with whom we don’t know. We hear things from the Socialist Party, and then we hear other things from There Is Such a People [TISP]. We are happy we have not been invited to meetings,” he commented.

The election winner (GERB-UDF) and the runner-up (CC-DB) “are absolutely unaware of what society expects from them, how they ought to hold the talks, and there is total chaos between them,” Vasilev said.

He said he is willing to give up his immunity as an MP to face trial on charges of forcing TISP MP Hristinka Ivanova to leave the party and the National Assembly in 2022. “I will give up my immunity, and all MPs of MECh will give up their immunity voluntarily as part of the responsibility we have assumed before our voters, and I have no worries at all about the trial,” he said.