site.btaDRF-MRF Floor Leader: Joint Governance Council Does Not Function in Its Entirety

The Democracy, Rights and Freedoms  - MRF (DRF-MRF) parliamentary group is still of the opinion that the Joint Governance Council does not function in its entirety, Floor Leader Dzhevdet Chakarov told reporters on Thursday. He specified that is not a matter of appointments alone.

At DRF-MRF's initiative, a proposal has been made to set up an ad hoc committee to look into the influence of MRF - New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski and his circle, Chakarov noted.

"We have taken responsibility and thanks to our constructive position, there is a government at the moment. There is an extremely favourable horizon before our country to become part of the eurozone," he noted and recalled that his party has always had an Euro-Atlantic orientation and considers European values important.

Asked whether DRF-MRF would stop supporting the government, Chakarov said that the group has had a constructive position from the very start. "Our country truly needs a regular government, the political crisis has not yet been overcome" he noted, adding that DRF-MRF is showing greater patience but everything has its limits.

Valentin Tonchev MP of DRF-MRF commented on the Joint Governance Council that his group bears solidary responsibility for the government and expects the other three partners in the government to acknowledge DRF-MRF as such a partner. The group considers the state budget a priority in the Joint Governance Council; it is through the State Budget Act that the policies of a ruling majority pass, Tonchev noted. "If they want DRF-MRF to be part of the ruling majority, they too should bear responsibility for the implementation of this budget," he added.

"We cannot support regulators without anyone having had talks with us," Tonchev said. "You saw the decision of the Constitutional Court yesterday [Wednesday], half of the polling stations are compromised, this means that we have participated in a grand manipulation and electoral violations. The question remains for us how the BSP participated in the constitutional complaints against these electoral manipulations and a few months later, nominated the deputy prime minister responsible for the electoral process as chairman of the Commission for Protection of Competition," Tonchev added. In his words, this indicates serious dependencies. Tonchev called for all procedures for the election of regulators to be cancelled. "For us it is much more important how the Joint Governance Council will function and how its processes will be transparently managed, not who will be the chairperson," he added. 

Chakarov commented that it is evident from the Constitutional Court's decision that this is a spectacular manipulation of the election results.