Political skirmishes: The relations between the parties in Parliament on the verge of the snap elections

Bulgaria’s 49th Parliament held its last regular sitting on April 26. It will hold only one more extraordinary sitting next week, unless the MPs decide otherwise. Today’s sitting did not go without verbal skirmishes between the former partners from GERB-UDF, We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). There were also new attacks from the opposition against the recent assemblage (the word frequently used to refer to the cooperation between the former power holders in the latest regular government – WCC-DB and GERB-UDF).

Currently the situation in the National Assembly looks like this: everyone against everyone. After the Parliament’s Speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov was ousted yesterday, today GERB-UDF leader Boyko Borissov said that everything in the relationship between WCC-DB and GERB-UDF is completely lost, but Borissov does not want to govern only with MRF either. Kiril Petkov of WCC-DB is of the opinion that Delyan Peevski (MRF) is like a heavy millstone on Borissov's neck. Peevski also commented by recalling that it was MRF and Yordan Tsonev who brought Kiril Petkov and Boyko Borissov together. He added that he would not allow them to break the state.

The page in the relations between GERB-UDF and WCC-DB seems to be completely closed.

Boyko Borissov, Chairman of GERB-UDF: "And when someone makes an election campaign on my back should know that it is very big, but also very slippery. Many people climbed on it. A lot fell. Yesterday's action against Rosen Zhelyazkov was violent. It was breaking, And what did they accomplish - they replaced Rosen with Rositsa. Yesterday they sowed such wind that the storm will not pass them by. BNT: Is all lost in the relationship? - Absolutely everything is lost after yesterday in the relationship."

Kiril Petkov, co-chairman of “We Continue the Change”: "I heard Mr Borissov say that he has a big back, which is slippery. Besides having a big back he has a big neck. However, unfortunately, at the moment Mr. Peevski is hanging on to it and strangling it. I regret what happened yesterday. I am sure that Rosen Zhelyazkov would not have violated the Constitution if he had free will. Yes, but Mr. Peevski was beckoning him from the front row and Borissov agreed and he broke the rules."

Parliament voted out Rosen Zhelyazkov as Speaker

Vice President, Iliana Iotova, described the removal of Rosen Zhelyazkov as Speaker of Parliament as strange:

"Perhaps there were many more cases in the past months in which the Parliament's Speaker could have been ousted, but this is ultimately the work of the parties within and of the groups. The changes that were made to the Constitution and the way they were made - they were supposed to secure the National Assembly as a place, space and terrain for election campaigning and as you can see that is exactly what is happening."

MRF is of the opinion that the WCC-DB project is over.

Delyan Peevski, chairman of the MRF parliamentary group: And Kiril, (Petkov) who explains who is hung up on who, let me tell you - he was begging and skimming to Borissov, who has not spoken to him for two months. He was begging me: please, get us together with Boyko, please, please. Yordan Tsonev threw him like a little poodle into this and closed the door after him and Borisov was watching like Todor Zhivkov on the ninth before the tenth (referring to the events on 10 November, 1989, when the former communist leader Todor Zhivkov was ousted) and he got up and hugged him, because Boyko has a big heart."

Kiril Petkov, co-chairman of WCC: "I do not want to get into these thuggish appearances of Mr. Peevski. I will tell him one thing, let him hear me out: I absolutely do not believe that he would dare to say these things to me if it were just the two of us and his bodyguards were outside."

Images by BGNES

Kornelia Ninova, BSP chairwoman: "Colleagues continue to throw compromises, insults, flash, poodles, etc.at each other. This was an emblem of the entire 49th National Assembly."

GERB-UDF do not want with WCC-DB, but they do not want with MRF only.

Boyko Borisov, Chairman of GERB-UDF: "GERB and MRF - the two parties only, I speak on behalf of GERB, will not do government and coalition. There is no way, I will not give all of these food to exercise on GERB."

Kiril Petkov, Co-Chairman of WCC: "Bulgaria cannot have a normal government from now on if this dependence of Mr Borissov on Mr Peevski is not broken."

Delyan Peevski, Chairman of the MRF parliamentary group: "I can't understand why they keep talking to MRF about who wanted and who didn't. How do they know that we want? I will not let them break the state.

The name of a new player in these elections - Vanya Grigorova - has sparked comments about the future parliamentary configuration.

Boyko Borissov, chairman of GERB: "I think Vanya Grigorova's bid to enter politics, given that I know what she did in Sofia, the next Parliament could be very different." - No, no, I can't speak, I don't know her to speak on their behalf."

Georgi Svilensky,BSP MP: "Today, the mask of Vanya Grigorova and her dependencies on GERB and Boyko Borisov fell off. Vanya Grigorova and Maya Manolova together will be another crutch of GERB in the Bulgarian Parliament."

The opposition assessed the work of the Parliament this way:

Tsoncho Ganev, MP from the “Vazrazhdane” Group: "Legislative ineptitude, struggle for control of customs, scandals, intracoalitional disputes and in the end this Parliament is going and thank God it is going, and we are going to elections."

"Boyko Borisov, Asen Vassilev, Kiril Petkov and Lena are like some strange swing company, which from time to time quarrel, the next day they get along. Look at today's - they're back together again."

Election countdown: 44 days to go.