SOFIA, 19 Apr. (DPA/EP) –
The two main political blocks in Bulgaria have reached an agreement on Wednesday to rotate the Presidency of Parliament, finally reaching a solution to end the blockade of the Legislative power in force since October last year.
The centre-right alliance of the Bulgarian Citizens for European Development (GERB) party and the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) has reached an agreement with We Continue for Change (PP) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB) to appoint Rosen Zhelyazkov as Speaker of Parliament.
The Bulgarian National Assembly – made up of 240 congressmen – has approved with 136 votes in favor the appointment of Zhelyazkov, a 55-year-old lawyer, as head of Parliament, although in the future it will have to give way to the PP-DB proposal after a period of three months.
With the appointment of a new president, the Bulgarian Parliament has managed to unblock its functions, paralyzed for months. In fact, at the beginning of the legislature, last week, none of the presidential candidates, including Zhelyazkov, achieved a majority in the National Assembly.
The GERB-SDS won the parliamentary elections at the beginning of April with 26.5 percent of the votes and 69 seats, four more than the PP-DB, which won 64 deputies after managing to convince the 24 .5 percent of the voters.
Now the Congress can begin to exercise its functions and the parliamentary factions can be officially constituted. In addition, the country’s president, Rumen Radev, can now give the GERB-SDS the first of three possible mandates to form a government. The leader of the GERB-SDS, Boyko Borisov, has already invited the PP-DB to talk to form a coalition government.
