Outging PM Nikolai Denkov: Mariya Gabriel made a big political mistake

Mariya Gabriel had made a huge political mistake, outgoing Prime Minister, Nikolai Denkov, said on March 22 from Brussels where he is participating in the two-day European Council meeting.

"Mariya Gabriel (GERB-UDF’s Prime Minister-designate, who was supposed to switch roles with Nikolai Denkov after 9 months) made a huge political mistake. This is a political mistake from which we all have to look for a way out. I wrote this to her personally. She should not have done it this way. We need to see if what is broken can be fixed. Whether she could be Prime Minister, I don't know. That has to be discussed in the course of negotiations... whether to look for another Prime Minister from GERB-UDF. As I said, it is important for us to form a government that is supported by both political parties with a mandate that must be national."

"The sensible solution is to sit at the negotiating table again," said Nikolai Denkov.

"What I have heard is that there is an idea for Parliament to vote only Mariya Gabriel as prime minister rather than the entire government. That would be a gross mistake because this would again mean distorting the Constitution," Denkov said.

He pointed out that the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers are subject to voting.

"There is no elected prime minister if there is no elected Council of Ministers."

He hoped that GERB-UDF would give up this venture, which he described as a "propaganda action" that had no legal value. The outgoing prime minister added that he has no communication with GERB-UDF.

"What I found out from Kiril Petkov (co-leader of power sharing partner “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria”) is that he tried to make contact with Borissov yesterday, but he has gone into hiding."

"Negotiations means everything together in a set, both sides have said ‘yes’, and implement what they agreed. That means completed negotiations. Anything else is empty talk."

Denkov added that he was ready to make reasonable concessions that would lead to a stable government.

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Following several days of government talks, on March 18 GERB-UDF Prime Minister-designate Mariya Gabriel announced that she had fulfilled a mandate to form a government and presented President Rumen Radev with a draft cabinet line-up without having the agreement of power sharing partner WCC-DB for it. In a press conference late on March 19. WCC-DB said that the proposed list of minister by Gabriel earlier that day was not coordinated with the WCC-DB negotiating team and that most of the proposed people, including Nikolai Denkov, had not agreed to participate and would not back the government. During the press conference, Finance Minister, Assen Vassilev, said that Gabriel is the "beautiful face of the mafia in Bulgaria".

On March 21, WCC-DB wrote a position in which they said that GERB-UDF's should take responsibility for the crisis they had created and offer a solution on the way out of it.

GERB-UDF responded that talks are possible only after an immediate apology and after the withdrawal of Assen Vassilev from the negotiations and from his participation in a possible future cabinet. GERB stands firmly behind Mariya Gabriel, they said.