Bulgaria elections postponed as political crisis deepens

Sofia: Bulgarian President Rumen Radev refused to appoint a caretaker government on Monday, prolonging the country’s political stalemate amid a rift over the nomination of Kalin Stoyanov to continue serving as interior minister.

Radev’s decision indefinitely delays a parliamentary election that was previously announced for Oct. 20. None of the country’s various political forces have managed to create a stable government in the past three years, during which Bulgarian voters have gone to the polls six times.

The president and the parliamentary opposition regard Stoyanov as a confederate of Delyan Peevski, a Bulgarian oligarch sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K. for corruption. Radev said in a Facebook post Monday that “ensuring calming of the political situation and holding fair elections” is “obviously impossible” if Stoyanov remains in his position.

Stoyanov has faced criticism for police violence during political protests, among other complaints.

Radev said he had asked Gorica Grancharova-Kozhareva, the designated acting prime minister in charge of forming a caretaker government, to consider someone else than Stoyanov as interior minister, but she refused.

“After the refusal of Mrs. Grancharova-Kozhareva to take advantage of the opportunity provided, I will not sign a decree for the appointment of the caretaker government proposed in this way, and her commitment to form it has ended,” Radev posted on Facebook.

“There will be no swearing-in in parliament tomorrow, the elections are postponed until after October 20, and the current caretaker cabinet will continue to perform its duties until a new caretaker government is formed.”

Grancharova-Kozhareva’s cabinet draft proposed to keep most current ministers in their posts, including Stoyanov, who has been interior minister since June 2023.

Accusing the reformist opposition We Continue the Change / Democratic Bulgaria alliance of coordinating with the president to sideline him, Stoyanov said on Facebook that “I will not back down at a time when an attempt is being made to take control of the system.”

Stoyanov has long been a thorn in Radev’s eye, as has Peevski, a media tycoon and one of Bulgaria’s most powerful oligarchs. Peevski is also chairman of the country’s ethnic Turkish party, the DPS.

In the latest riff between the two, Peevski accused the president of pressuring Grancharova-Kozhareva over the formation of the caretaker government. Meanwhile, Stoyanov’s critics, including former PM Kiril Petkov, accused him of acting on Peevski’s orders.

“Peevski broke Kozhareva!” Petkov wrote on Facebook, accusing the designated PM of bowing to the oligarch’s wishes. “Kalin Stoyanov became an example of the captured country. Radev acted correctly, did not run away from responsibility and used his powers under the Constitution.”

Stoyanov’s interior ministry recently took down a satirical website mocking Peevski. Bozhidar Bozhanov, an MP from the We Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria opposition coalition, called the move an attempt at censorship.

Grancharova-Kozhareva said she would file a report with the prosecutor’s office claiming political pressure to force her to remove Stoyanov from his post.

Bulgaria has suffered political instability since 2020, when thousands of demonstrators protested the capture of state institutions by organized crime.