Constitutional crisis: President Radev refused to sign the interim government proposed by Gorica Grancharova because of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

President Rumen Radev refused to sign a decree appointing Gorica Grancharova-Kozhareva as acting prime minister. The reason is that during the presentation of the ministerial staff, the candidate for interim prime minister left the interior minister Kalin Stoyanov in his post.

Radev pointed out that this will not reduce the political tension in society, therefore he demanded the replacement of the candidate for the head of the Ministry of the Interior. The head of state invited Kozhareva to come again at 3 p.m. with a new proposal to replace Stoyanov. Radev was adamant that if Kozhareva did not propose another person, he would not sign the decree.

For her part, Gorica Kožareva stated that she cannot change her opinion on this expert proposal and cannot present another person as interior minister.

In such a case, Radev refused to sign a decree and announced that Kozhareva would not be acting prime minister. He clarified that tomorrow there will be no swearing in of a new official cabinet in the National Assembly, and the elections will be rescheduled for after October 20.

The candidate for caretaker prime minister, Gorica Grancharova, announced the names of her chosen caretaker ministers. Most of the dos keep their posts, including Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov. The ministers of foreign affairs, health, ecology and transport are new.

"I had 10 days to form a cabinet. I am a person for whom dialogue, respect, are very important in the work in order to achieve the best result for the institution. I believe that compliance with the constitutional principle of separation of powers is the main prerequisite of political tension," Kozhareva said at the beginning. The frequent change of ministers has a bad effect on the state administration, she pointed out and thus justified her decision to keep a large part of the ministers in the cabinet. But at the slightest suspicion of impropriety, the caretaker prime minister promised to replace them.

She then presented the structure and composition of the cabinet. There will be two deputy prime ministers in it - these are Finance and Economic Minister Ludmila Petkova and Rosen Karadimov, Deputy Prime Minister for Civil Society Affairs

Kozhareva guaranteed that it would be ready on time and held a series of meetings with potential ministers, including former cabinet members. She conducted the talks in the parliament, but made an exception only for those in the Ministry of the Interior, where she went to a place of meetings separately with the professional leadership, and then with the political one.

So far, it is known that several of the current ministers will keep their posts.

Minister of Finance Ludmila Petkova, Minister of Economy and Industry Petko Nikolov, as well as Minister of Agriculture Georgi Takhov have been invited to continue their work in the next caretaker government.

Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov also told the media yesterday that he still does not know if he will remain in the next cabinet, after a series of protests the police unions insisted that he keep his post.

The PP-DB announced that this was political pressure on the nominee for prime minister, and the leader of the PG of the DPS announced that Kozhareva was being pressured for ministerial appointments by the circle around the president.

There was even unofficial information in some media that Kozhareva intended to resign and return the official mandate.

Commenting on the unconfirmed predictions that Kozhareva will "throw in the towel", Vice President Iliana Yotova said that she does not expect her to refuse them. "I think that Gorica Kožareva will present a cabinet. She did not say that there will not be a cabinet. She has not shown in any way that she has succumbed to pressure," commented Yotova over the weekend.

On August 20, MPs were expected to interrupt their two-week vacation to attend the swearing-in of new ministers, if a presidential decree had already been issued by then. This is logical, since at the consultations with the parliamentary parties, Rumen Radev has already scheduled the date of the seventh parliamentary elections in a row, again ahead of schedule.