Bulgaria's Ethnic Turkish Leader: Ex PM Lost Grip on Reality

Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish leader, Lyutvi Mestan, arrives for talks with the country's president, photo by BGNES.

The Chair of Bulgaria's 42nd General Assembly is not going to be from the ranks of the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, says party leader, Lyutvi Mestan.

Mestan spoke Friday on his way out of the office of the presidential administration, after the conclusion of his talks with President, Rosen Plevneliev.

He stressed the hypothesis that the next Speaker of the Parliament would be from the far-right nationalist Ataka party must be ruled out as well.

Regarding earlier statements of former Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, and leader of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, that "200 000 fewer voters cast a ballot on May 12 for DPS and all 200 000 votes went to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP," Mestan commented: "Borisov must get a grip on reality as we have serious grounds to worry about his condition. I never before heard such non-sense. I understand the loss must be hurting, but nevertheless such non-sense is disgraceful."

The DPS leader explained his party, similarly to the Socialists, has asked to set May 21 as the date to convene the new Parliament, so that Bulgarians can have representation by their most sacred holiday - May 24, the Day of Slavic Script and Culture.

Mestan said if the BSP nomination for the PM post, former Finance Minister, Plamen Oresharski, attempts to change the flat tax to an income-based one, DPS would not support him.

"Mr. Stanishev is better informed; I have not spoken to Oresharski in a long time," he said in commenting on words of BSP leader, Sergey Stanishev, his party was preparing an expert Cabinet.

"Today we are NOT conducting consultations on forming a new government. We are discussing technical details about the date of convocation of the Parliament," the President stressed meanwhile.

He met with representatives of GERB, BSP, DPS, and Ataka.

GERB gathered 30.503% of the votes in Sunday's general elections, final results show.

Left-wing BSP is next with 26.614%, followed by DPS with 11.293% and the far-right, nationalist Ataka - 7.302%. All other parties running in Sunday's vote have remained below the 4% election threshold.

According to the final official count – GERB + Ataka will have together 120 seats and DPS + BSP – another 120 in the 240-seats unicameral Parliament.

The number of MP seats each of the four parties have won are as follows – 97 for GERB, 84 for BSP, 36 for DPS, and 23 for Ataka.

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