President Radev: The regular government failed because of greed for power and self-interest

This morning I signed the decree for the appointment of the caretaker government, and it ends a failed political experiment - the so-called assembly. The government was created and it failed out of lust for power and self-interest, and the mutual accusations between yesterday's partners in power do not absolve any of them of responsibility. This was stated by President Rumen Radev in response to journalistic questions in the National Assembly building, where the Head of State and Vice President Iliana Yotova attended the swearing-in ceremony of the caretaker government proposed by Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev.

Ten months ago, when I handed over the mandate to form a government to Nikolay Denkov, I urged him not to implement it because of the anti-democratic requests in the minutes of the meeting of the Parliament, the head of state recalled and expressed hope that in the upcoming early elections the voice of the Bulgarian citizens would finally be heard and understood.

Rumen Radev pointed out that in the formation of the cabinet proposed by Dimitar Glavchev, the changes in the Constitution made with the "frenzied desire of the parties of the "assembly" to take away the powers of the president in relation to the official government" were applied for the first time. The head of state stated that he was categorically not responsible for the composition of the Council of Ministers and in no way interfered in the personnel policy of the acting prime minister, who has the right to choose his team himself. "Dimitar Glavchev will rule the country with his ministers, not me. The responsibility is his and above all that of the working parliament," noted Rumen Radev, raising the issue of the implementation of control by a collapsed parliamentary majority. There must be political leadership over this caretaker government, because it depends on how effective it will be, added the head of state.

In response to the calls not to sign the decree for the appointment of the official cabinet, Rumen Radev noted that these were actually calls to violate the new changes in the Constitution. "It is strange that the calls are coming from those political parties that initiated and voted for these changes. They even called the list of potential caretaker prime ministers a 'menu' and now they are frowning at what they are being served," the president said.

In connection with the criticism of the choice of Kalin Stoyanov to remain Minister of the Interior, the President commented that he personally would not have appointed him, if it depended on him, nor in an interim government, nor would he have proposed him for a regular cabinet, as Nikolay Denkov did. "The most comical thing in this case is that PP-DB, which until yesterday ruled in a rather passionate, strong embrace with GERB and DPS, did not stop talking all the time that, you see, I am most likely betraying Bulgarian democracy with GERB and DPS. It's an eyesore," the president said.

In connection with what is happening in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the "Customs" agency, the president described the situation as "an attempt to transform a purely criminal case into a political one with a pre-election goal." Rumen Radev reminded that about a year ago, the PP-DB demanded for almost a month that a decree be signed for the release of Petar Todorov as the chief secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the motive of implementing their policies. "Peter Todorov is a deeply honorable person and a professional who did not get involved in absolutely any fraud," the president declared and insisted on a thorough investigation by whom, under what conditions and how there was pressure on the current chief secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, as well as whether and how the name of Kalin Stoyanov is connected with smuggling. The President pointed out that the politicians cannot turn a blind eye to the facts that lead to the existence of incompatibility of the chief secretary with his position, because the prestige of the department is deeply damaged.

"Such large-scale connections between the chief secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and mastitis smugglers is a mockery of statehood," said Radev and added that the attempts of Nikolay Denkov to justify the closeness of these people with ignorance cause affection. The Head of State highly appreciated the work of DANS Chairman Plamen Tonchev and the agency's employees for their courage and professionalism to protect statehood at the highest management levels. "If last year I had succumbed to the hysteria to release Plamen Tonchev, now we would not know anything about these outrages," added Radev.

The head of state indicated that acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and his team should not allow any doubts that the elections will be fair, especially in this extremely explosive environment. The President pointed out that a number of laws can be adopted even in the presence of a functioning parliament. The Head of State stated that two regular governments have not made progress on the Recovery and Sustainability Plan, and the only transfer of funds, and in a serious amount, was carried out during the mandate of the caretaker government of Galab Donev. Then, progress was also made on our entry into Schengen with the removal of the European Commission's Cooperation and Evaluation Mechanism, and the topic was seriously put before the European partners.