site.btaUPDATED GERB Leader Borissov to MRF Chair Peevski: No One Is Self-Sufficient

Taking a question from BTA about whether he would allow MRF - New Beginning Floor Leader Delyan Peevski to run the country, GERB leader Boyko Borissov said here on Friday: "When arrogance becomes so great that it starts to get in everyone's way, we all find ourselves in a situation where we have to come out and say, 'I'm going to do this,' 'it cannot be done without me' - we are not self-sufficient, that is how the entire political system in Bulgaria is currently structured. [President Rumen] Radev is not self-sufficient either." Borissov commented for journalists on Thursday's statement of Peevski that he would "make a State with a capital D".

In Bulgarian, the word for "State" starts with a "d", just like Peevski's first name.

Borissov added: "No one has the right to say, 'I am the guarantor,' 'It depends on me,' because any of us can say that." He explained that this was a criticism of Peevski.

The GERB leader pointed out that the current government belongs to Bulgaria, and that it was very difficult to put together after eight elections. "It does not belong to GERB, it does not belong to Peevski, it does not belong to There Is Such a People, and it does not belong to the Bulgarian Socialist Party," said Borissov, referring to the parties in the ruling majority.

He told journalists: "Everyone can have self-confidence, but when that self-confidence starts to make you feel that something depends solely and exclusively on you, and you sell it that way to the public, that is a serious negative, that is perhaps the early Borissov." The GERB leader added that before 2004-2005, his self-confidence was based on self-sufficiency, but a person must be able to offer both criticism and self-criticism.

Regarding the proposal for legislative changes whereby the security services' heads would be elected by Parliament instead of appointed by a presidential decree, Borissov commented that President Radev had been "mocking the Government" for months. "If I were prime minister, I would go and find out [why Radev rejected the Cabinet's nominee for State Agency for National Security Chair], but I am not and I cannot speak on behalf of [Prime Minister Rosen] Zhelyazkov," said the leader of GERB. "When there are no incumbents in the services or they are appointed solely by one person, we propose that whatever there is [as a problem] be discussed here in Parliament, publicly and transparently," he added.