Iliana Yotova: Elections - on the First Date After Easter

We will do everything possible for the elections to be on the first date after the Easter holidays, said President Iliana Yotova at the beginning of the consultations with “DPS-New Beginning” within the framework of the procedure for appointing a caretaker prime minister.

The first Sunday after this year's Easter is April 19.

The goal is to hold fair, transparent, well-organized elections. This will also be the most important task of the future caretaker cabinet. At the same time, the country faces complex weeks and months in which many important decisions must be made and urgent actions must be taken. The hundreds of thousands of people who were at the protests demanded a rule of law and a just state, and also demanded the holding of the fairest and most transparent elections possible, Yotova also said.

How the caretaker cabinet will work largely depends on the political responsibility of the National Assembly, the president stated. Bulgaria is working with an extension budget in the first months of our entry into the Eurozone, and this budget from last year is not calculated for this. The price shock must be overcome. We must consider urgent measures to help the most vulnerable. We must think about the money and projects of the municipalities, about the income of Bulgarian citizens and at the same time fulfill our foreign policy commitments, explained Iliana Yotova.

To date, with different arguments and proposals, everyone recognizes the failure of the latest changes to the Constitution, which led to the deprivation of the presidential institution of a choice in the formation of a caretaker cabinet, Yotova said. President (2017 – 2026) Rumen Radev twice gave these texts to the Constitutional Court to restore the spirit of the Constitution for a real separation of powers, President Yotova recalled, but added that it did not work.

So today I have to appoint one of the five who have agreed to be caretaker prime ministers. In their election, neither President Radev nor I had a say and we cannot bear the responsibility for the caretaker government. This responsibility lies with the National Assembly, Iliana Yotova stated. With these changes, I will appoint one of those who said “yes”, but this is not my choice, Yotova also stated. The president noted that the parliament has the right to parliamentary control over the caretaker cabinet.

Later today, President Yotova will hold consultations with “BSP-United Left” and “There is such a people”.