Bulgarian Parliament to Elect New C-Bank Governor

The Bulgarian Parliament will elect at an extraordinary plenary sitting on Tuesday the new governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB).

The parliamentary Budget and Finance Committee held hearings of the four candidates on July 9.

All four candidates unanimously called for stepping up bank supervision in Bulgaria and accession of the country to the eurozone, daily Dnevnik reports.

In order to be elected, a candidate has to garner more than half of the votes of the MPs present in the plenary chamber.

In case no one receives the required number of votes at the first ballot, a second round of voting will take place, which will be contested by the two candidates with most votes garnered at the first vote.

If no candidate is elected after the second ballot, the national assembly will have to launch a new election procedure.

All four candidates have been nominated by the parties directly involved in the government or supporting the ruling coalition.

The favourite for the position is Dimitar Radev, an economist at the IMF and former deputy finance minister, who is the nominee of the main ruling party GERB.

The junior coalition partner, the Reformist Bloc (RB), nominated Biser Manolov, who is a former chief of the Bulgarian Deposit Insurance Fund (BDIF).

The two parties supporting the coalition government, the Patriotic Front (PF) and the Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV), nominated respectively Grigorii Vazov and Viktor Yotsov.

Vazov is the rector of the University of finance, business and entrepreneurship, while Yotsov is a former BNB and IMF expert.

The newly elected governor will succeed Ivan Iskrov, whose term of office was due to expire in October, but he decided to step down earlier.

Iskrov announced his resignation in June and it entered into force on July 10.

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