How long can the power of Boyko Borisov and Delyan Peevski last? This is the question now at the center of the political debate. Will they continue to ignore the protesters in the street? Or will at least one surrender and let the government fall in the next vote of no confidence?
Apparently, the tandem really wants to keep the situation as it was until now. They have arranged things wonderfully – they have their own cabinet, they have given out ministries “on concession” (in the words of Borisov), they have filled almost all the government posts that are determined by the parliament with their own elected officials. Well, it’s true, things didn’t go their way with the state budget. But they continue to hold power.
However, the protest remains a central issue for Borisov and Peevski.
Too many people took to the streets to be simply ignored. The leader of GERB understood that something had to give way. He focused on business – he promised to remove from the budget everything that employers did not like. His logic was that once the protest was announced against the draft budget, then it should end if the draft was revised.
Another motive was behind this move by Borisov – his desire to deny the political nature of the protest. Everyone who went noticed it – people resented the leaders of GERB and DPS personally. The protesters want Borisov and Peevski to leave political life – nothing less.
The head of “New Beginning” accepts this as an existential threat to himself – he even passed the protest as a “People’s Court”. And Borisov pretends that there is no politics in the protest and prefers to go along the lines of conspiracy – now he claims that business organized the protest, now that the young people were misled by opponents of the eurozone.
That’s what pissed people off and drove them to the streets
on December 2 in unprecedented numbers – the refusal of the tandem to recognize them as autonomous citizens who can make political demands and pressure the authorities to recognize them.
For Borisov in particular, the idea of the conspiracy gives him a reason to hold on to power and pretend that the protest does not concern him. It’s not about me, it’s just a plot to change power – that’s his version of everything that’s going on. Such an attitude can only enrage people even more.
However, now the battle is being transferred to the parliamentary level because of the vote of no confidence submitted by the PP-DB. And in the National Assembly, the tandem is strong. There are no signs so far that their majority will break. No parties are leaving it, and there are no individual MPs to defect. On the contrary, the rulers are tightening ranks in the name of preserving the current situation.
It is clear for BSP and ITN – they live very well with this power
early elections are a great risk
Peevski also has no reason to complain – according to the opposition, he is diligently mastering new and new positions in state power. Moreover, formally the leader of the DPS does not even participate in the governing coalition and is not directly responsible for its actions. He also has a personal motive to resist the resignation of the cabinet – this will look like his personal defeat by the PP-DB.
With Borisov, it is more complicated – GERB-SDS is the mandate holder and everything related to this government falls directly on him. It is logical for him to expect that the possible failure of the cabinet will not reflect well on him. And early elections now, with such high public support for the protest and such visible public discontent against him personally, portend serious problems for GERB if people go to the polls.
That’s why Borisov made it clear that the coalition is a good thing, but now “the interests of GERB come first … and we have to take into account what the people in the square think and do only what is approved”. “Whoever wants us to govern will govern the way the people and we want. If not, early elections. We’ve passed it eight times, we’ll pass it sixteen more if we have to,” he said in a TikTok video. In other words, in his plans
resignation is a very real option
There is another factor that affects his accounts – the caretaker government. In practice, all those who, by virtue of the Constitution, can head it, are selected by GERB and DPS. We can expect that whatever cabinet comes in, it will continue the policies of the current government.
All this can convince Borisov that he is not afraid to resign from the “Zhelyazkov” cabinet. Anyway, he will keep his position under the caretaker prime minister. He will remove from himself the responsibility for everything that will happen in the transition from leva to the euro. The street may also calm down. And GERB will go to the elections, armed with the slogan that a conspiracy overthrew the government, during which the country entered the Eurozone (let’s not forget how many years Borisov mobilized his supporters with the memory of the “Kostinbrod” affair). The burden of solving yet another government crisis will fall on PP-DB.
The parties in the ruling coalition will suffer heavy damage from the protest, that much is clear. And their losses will grow all the more the longer they hold on to power in the face of street discontent. By resigning the cabinet, Borisov can reduce the damage to GERB and personally to himself from the difficult situation in which the government has fallen, and maintain his influence on the state through the official cabinet (here the big unknown is the president Rumen Radev and his powers vis-à-vis the official government). If he waits too long, he risks the anger of the protesters making his situation far worse.
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