Bulgarian Presidential Impeachment in a Teacup

The latest political “scandal” to occupy public attention in Bulgaria is not really a very exciting one even though, supposedly, much is at stake – the potential impeachment of President Parvanov initiated by the ruling GERB party of Prime Minister Borisov.

Why do the GERB party and its allies from the rightist Blue Coalition and the nationalist Ataka party want to impeach Parvanov?

This time (see below for the previous time) it all started when in a TV talk show Finance Minister (and Deputy PM) Simeon Djankov hinted that the President was a secret billionaire. When asked by the hosts if it was true that Parvanov was a young billionaire, Djankov said “He certainly is not young.”

The Presidency reacted pretty strongly which led Djankov to go to the President’s office last Friday in order to talk the situation over with Parvanov. Even though Djankov said after the meeting that the conflict had been resolved, this opinion was not share by the President whose administration swiftly released the transcript of their conversation publishing it on its website.

This was a pretty nasty move. First, because this is perhaps the first case ever in Bulgaria’s history of a transcript of a conversation between two politicians of such rank which was released immediately and on the website of one of the two institutions involved. This double standard – i.e. the fact that this was a precedent – led the rightist Blue Coalition to demand the release of tapes of Parvanov’s talks with the Russians over the large-scale energy projects, and with other Bulgarian politicians about the forming of the Stanishev government – because clearly Bulgaria has no criteria when to release such transcripts.

Second, because the Finance Minister had not been notified or asked about the release of the transcript. Third, because the trascript made Parvanov seem to be the winner in the dispute because he behaved rather aggressively and even interrupted Djankov a couple of times.

It is clear that Djankov made made an unpleasant hint about the President in that talk show – even though he later tried to portray it as a joke. But it is also clear that Djankov is not really good at being aggressive – and was actually rather apologetic during his meeting with Parvanov – even though he bluntly refused to apologize for his words saying he did not make the claims the President accuses him of.

Clearly, the ruling party had to react proportionally in order to help Djankov save face – otherwise it would seem as though he went to the Presidency to be shouted at by the Parvanov, and hardly managed to say anything in his own defense. Thus, on Wednesday the GERB party came up with the idea to start an impeachment procedure.

Now, this is not the first time Parvanov’s presidential seat comes under such menace. In October-November 2009, just three months after the Borisov government came to power, it was much more likely that he could be impeached.

The reason then had to do with the recall of Bulgaria’s Ambassadors to the USA and Turkey over violations they allowed in the July Parliamentary Elections. Parvanov, however, refused to okay the recall, leading the rightist majority to get ready to impeach him.

The moment would have been much better for GERB if they really wanted to do that because they had a lot of traction after just winning the elections, they had one more rightist ally – the conservatives from RZS who group later fell apart and they turned against them – and a much clearer motive. Eventually, however, the problematic Ambassadors resigned, and the Parliament dropped the impeachment issue off the agenda – fueling suspicions that there had been some deal between Borisov and Parvanov, or that Parvanov was simply “brought into line”.

This time, however, it would be much harder to impeach Parvanov. For one thing – the motive for initiating the motion is rather murky – GERB claim the President violated the Constitution by taping Finance Minister Djankov without his agreement.

While this raises a whole bunch of legal issues in Bulgaria about the taping of talks between officials, it is hardly a convincing argument even for people with little legal knowledge – just because every single meeting of this sort has shorthand records that Djankov was well aware of, and those are not forbidden by the Constitution. There seems to be little legal clarity about the double standards of releasing such transcripts to the public to achieve certain political goals.

Second, the GERB party will hardly muster enough Parliamentary support for an impeachment decision. It needs to have 60 MPs sign a petition to demand a debate on the issue. Then in the debate, it needs to have a majority of two-thirds, or 161 votes out of 240 MPs in order to pass an impeachment vote, which will throw the decision in the hands of the Supreme Constitutional Court. Together with its allies, the GERB party has 152 votes.

Even if it somehow got the other nine votes from the staunch opposition – Parvanov’s Socialist Party, the ethnic Turkish DPS, and the conservative RZS, it is not very likely that the Constitional Court will rule in favor of impeachment.

The GERB party really cannot afford to suffer such a possible defeat. At the same time, if Parvanov got impeached, this will either make his deputy, former Warsaw Pact general Angel Marin, the President, or will lead to early Presidential Elections. Both scenarios are rather unfavorable for Borisov, especially the second one, which will hardly allow his government to meet the expections of its voters.

Finally, there was Borisov himself mentioning late on Wednesday that he didn’t feel like having Marin as President.

The GERB party does not really seem to have any intention to impeach Parvanov; they just appear to want to carry out a short and decisive punitive campaign. As of now it is still unclear where along the way the charges against the President would be dropped but the ruling party would hardly risk holding a vote in which it did not muster enough votes, or seeing a Constitutional Court ruling unfavorable to them.

Allowing either of those would be a serious blunder for them. As will be the actual impeachment of Parvanov and going for early Presidential elections – which will totally throw the Bulgarian nation off course at a moment when it has got to focus on overcoming the crisis, fighting corruption and crime, and finally absorbing EU money for the public good.

Unless Borisov’s party commits any major mistakes, the second motion to impeach Parvanov will share the fate of the first one – it will make a few headlines and will descend into oblivion.

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