Bulgarian PM faces ouster bid as protests intensify

Bloomberg

Bulgaria’s main opposition party launched a no-confidence motion against the government, putting pressure on Prime Minister Boyko Borissov as protesters take to the streets against his failure to fight high-level corruption.
The Socialist Party, which filed the motion on Wednesday, doesn’t have enough lawmakers to oust the cabinet in the fifth such confidence vote it has faced. But the motion comes during a political crisis brought by a standoff between Borissov and President Rumen Radev. The latter has urged the premier and the chief prosecutor to resign and accused Borissov of improper links with wealthy oligarchs. Borissov denies wrongdoing.
“Borissov created a parallel state, and it runs the real one,” Socialist leader Korneliya
Ninova told reporters in Sofia. “We want to destroy this
model of oligarchic governance.”
A three-time prime minister, Borissov says his government is under attack by powerful businessmen who are trying to fight criminal investigations. He argues that the crisis undermines the government’s ability to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus.
He has already resigned twice as premier — after protests against austerity measures in 2013 and his party’s 2016 presidential election loss — and may be positioning himself to do so again before next year’s parliamentary ballot.
“The division in the nation is so strong that I don’t know how we’ll overcome the next few months,” Borissov said at a government session on Wednesday. “The economic crisis is coming at high pace. The state needs to be consolidated.”
Borissov has worked to raise living standards and advance the European Union nation’s path toward adopting the euro.
But he has been harried by corruption scandals, probes against former and current ministers and leaked wiretaps alleging his involvement in abuse of power that he denies.
Bulgaria is ranked last among EU nations in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of the capital, Sofia, since last week. Chanting “Mafia Out!” demonstrators demanded the resignations of both Borissov and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev. Six people were detained Tuesday after clashing with police and trying to break into the parliament building.
Radev, whose role is largely ceremonial, has been a vocal critic of Geshev’s investigations of high-profile officials and the government’s poor progress in fighting corruption.
The president himself enjoys immunity from investigation and prosecution, though Geshev is challenging that protection at the Constitutional Court and raided his offices in a probe against a presidential aide last week.
The US embassy in Sofia said in a statement that it supports the Bulgarian people as they “peacefully advocate for increased faith in your democratic system and promote the rule of law in Bulgaria.”
“No one is above the law,” it said.