After two procedures with two additional votes in each, the 48th National Assembly was unable to choose a Speaker of the Parliament, creating an unusual scenario. After the meeting, the former culture minister Vezhdi Rashidov declared that the proceedings would resume tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Desislava Atanasova, the chairman of the PG of GERB, indicated that the meeting was to be terminated.
Atanasova commented, “Unless the rules or requirements for an agreement in the room are changed, this will probably happen numerous times. However, changing them would be against the Constitution. The only way to change the rules is to suggest a different voting method. However, I am doubtful about doing so. Still, I believe it is appropriate to postpone the meeting to resume it tomorrow at the hour specified by the chairman”.
None of the candidates could gain the support of the majority of individuals in the room for the first vote. The two candidates who received the most votes, Rosen Zhelyazkov and Nikola Minchev, competed in a run-off. Additionally, none of the candidates earned a majority of the vote in the re-voting.
After a break and talks, the deputies began a new process for choosing the Speaker of the National Assembly. In the repeated process, the DPS put forward Yordan Tsonev as their candidate for the 48th National Assembly chairmanship, and the GERB-SDS, We Continue the Change, Vazrazhdane, and BSP once more put forth their nominees. As a result, the number of nominees increases to five.
GERB-SDS accused We Continue the Change of intentionally creating a constitutional crisis not to have a functioning parliament. WCC replied that the constitutional crisis does not start today, but today it becomes clear that GERB-SDS failed to gather a majority in support of its candidate.
Kiril Petkov remarked that they will follow the pledges they made before the election to avoid misleading half a million voters and address people’s problems. No dishonest negotiations or discussions will be held. He advised the GERB-SDS to resign so that the National Assembly could select a candidate who would have the support of the deputies.