President Georgi Purvanov will hand mandate to the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) today at 4.30pm, Focus news agency reported.
Nearly three weeks after the start of political negotiations on forming a Cabinet, the BSP named Sergei Stanishev as its candidate to be Prime Minister. It also became clear that talks between BSP and the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) are not running smoothly. Stanishev blamed the NMSII for the failure so far of the coalition talks. BSP members said that NMSII was protecting the interests of its members rather than the political ideals of the party.
BSP members approved the structure of the new government but did not nominate ministers. The new Cabinet will have a separate ministry of information technology. Coalition talks continued over the weekend. The most difficult area of negotiations revolves around distributing ministerial posts. The BSP wants half of the ministries and will not compromise, Stanishev said. Last week a distribution scheme of 9:6:4 ministers for BSP, NMSII, and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) was approved. (Novinar)