Bulgarian Socialists Disgruntled with Parliament Speaker Ethics

The Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, is accused by the opposition socialists of double standards and numerous other violations of the Code of Ethics. Photo by BGNES

The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is demanding that the Parliamentary Ethics Committee examines the behavior of the Parliament’s Speaker, Tsetska Tsacheva.

The demand was voiced Wednesday by the BSP Member of the Parliament, Petar Korumbashev, who said that for the one year of Tsacheva leading the Parliament, she showed a track record of shunning the Opposition.

According to Korumbashev, out of 400 Opposition questions from his colleagues to ministers, 58 had been dismissed by Tsacheva while she had shown the most compassion for Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, by dismissing 14 out of a total of 25 questions addressed to him.

The socialist MP further pointed out the Speaker must assume full responsibility about the scandalous amendment to the Drug Substances Act, which, if materialized, would have liberalized the rules about advertisements including pictures of illegal drugs and was considered an act of lobbyism on the part of two MPs from the ruling GERB party.

Plamen Tsekov and Svetlin Tanchev from the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party were ousted Wednesday from important parliamentary posts, but Korumbashev declared the move was, in reality, Tsacheva’s attempt to avoid responsibility.

Other accusations on the part of the socialists include double standards for opposition and GERB MPs, manipulation of the required quorum in order to pass GERB Acts and disparaging of certain MPs.

Tsacheva met the accusations with silence.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!