Two days after GERB compromised the rotation negotiations with WCC-DB, threatening to trigger early elections, it appears that the biggest parliamentary party has raised the stakes without the explicit consent of its formal reformist partners.
The candidate for prime minister - Mariya Gabriel, returned the exploratory mandate completed and accompanied by a list of names of ministers to President Rumen Radev just after 4pm on Tuesday after several postponements. Unlike yesterday, when she received the mandate in the presence of the co-chairman of WCC Kiril Petkov and outgoing PM Nikolay Denkov, on this occasion Gabriel was accompanied only by the GERB negotiating team. So far, there has been no comment from the reformist camp on the proposed changes, which yesterday they branded "unacceptable".
The proposed list of ministers envisages keeping most of the current cabinet albeit with a few notable changes. These include Defense Minister Todor Tagarev, who will be replaced by GERB MP and head of the Defense Committee in the National Assembly Hristo Gadzhev, Zhecho Stankov, who will take over the energy ministry from Rumen Radev. The e-governance ministry goes to Valentin Mundov, Rosen Zhelyazkov becomes Minister of Innovation, Katya Paneva takes over the health sector and environment goes to Ivelina Vassileva. Outgoing PM Nikolay Denkov will become Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs.
How did the rotation spin out of control?
After an uneventful week of negotiations, which pointed at a likely positive outcome to negotiations, late on Sunday evening everything turned 180 degrees. The four GERB intermediaries called a surprise press conference at 10pm, announcing that they felt WCC-DB were not treating them as equal partners in the proposed memorandum and not giving the largest party an adequate number of ministerial seats after the rotation, warning that the negotiations - which were bound to end by noon on the next day - could collapse.
The GERB press conference was followed by one by the WCC-DB leadership, which expressed surprise at the sudden turn of events, claiming that the drafting at the shared governing document process had been proceeding smoothly until then. Hristo Ivanov (DB) underlined that GERB had been equally involved in the drafting of the document, which his party later published in full.
It's the cadres, stupid!
And if at midnight on Sunday it seemed that the signing of the document on the decision-making mechanisms was the main obstacle for the partners, a leak coming from GERB on Monday proved that the contentious issue centers on appointments. The leak showed a list of new ministerial appointees-to-be from the party.
The unofficial list of ministers proposed by GERB included six new names. According to it, the party wanted to take over the Defense Ministry, where the head of the Parliamentary Defense Committee Hristo Gadzhev was to take over from WCC-DB's nomination Todor Tagarev. Rumors coming from both parties claimed this change caused the most controversy.
Other new names included GERB's nominees for Social Policy Minister (Denitsa Sacheva, who held the post in the last Borissov cabinet), Education (Krasimir Valchev, who also used to hold the post), Energy (Zhecho Stankov), Innovation (Parliament speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov) and Environment (Ivelina Vassileva). Katya Paneva, MP from the DSB party, part of the WCC-DB coalition, had been proposed as health minister.
After the leak, GERB's nominee for PM Mariya Gabriel said they would sign the agreement, while WCC's Nikolay Denkov announced that "In this form it is unacceptable to us."
Silence from Borissov, blessing from Peevski
GERB leader Boyko Borissov remained silent on Monday, but MRF co-chairman Delyan Peevski effectively ordered the partners to start getting along and sign the agreement. He even announced that WCC-DB had agreed with him on the texts on judicial reform on Friday. This added new questions about the debacle, as the leading hypothesis until then was that the reason for GERB's sudden withdrawal was uncertainty about the future role of MRF in the majority, which was not guaranteed under the document.
In the early afternoon on Monday (19 March), the negotiating teams sequestered themselves in the National Assembly chambers for meetings lasting about six hours, and it was understood that they would resume on Tuesday morning. Subsequently, there was no official information on whether the two sides were editing "two or three sentences" (in the words of WCC co-chair Kiril Petkov) in the agreement or if they were discussing changes of ministers.
The resumed negotiations were again plunged into silence, and the publicly demonstrated moves of both political parties showed that they wanted to avoid an early election. In spite of everything, it appears that talks have ended inconclusively and GERB might be trying to force WCC-DB to approve its minister-nominees - or else get the blame for triggering an early vote.
Two days after GERB compromised the rotation negotiations with WCC-DB, threatening to trigger early elections, it appears that the biggest parliamentary party has raised the stakes without the explicit consent of its formal reformist partners.
The candidate for prime minister - Mariya Gabriel, returned the exploratory mandate completed and accompanied by a list of names of ministers to President Rumen Radev just after 4pm on Tuesday after several postponements. Unlike yesterday, when she received the mandate in the presence of the co-chairman of WCC Kiril Petkov and outgoing PM Nikolay Denkov, on this occasion Gabriel was accompanied only by the GERB negotiating team. So far, there has been no comment from the reformist camp on the proposed changes, which yesterday they branded "unacceptable".
