Common ground on some major political issues and courses of action – that is the briefest description of the consultations ITN (There Is Such a People) held over the weekend with all parties represented in parliament, with the exception of GERB. Concrete names for prime minister and members of the cabinet were not discussed with any of the political forces. Still, questions regarding its composition did come up, Atanas Atanasov, co-chair of Democratic Bulgaria said in an interview for the BNR:

“We cannot give support to individuals in advance. Of course they matter, and our partners from “There Is Such a People” stated that we would be able to get acquainted with the nominations well before the names of the nominations for cabinet members are submitted to parliament, and that if we have any objections we shall be able to state them. That is how it is done in the civilized world.”

As to the way the leadership and the MPs from “There Is Such a People” have been acting, so far they have been demonstrating they are an “antisystem” party and have consistently been following the thesis formulated by ITN’s deputy chairman Toshko Yordanov – “None of us wants GERB or the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, to be involved in the cabinet in any way.” It looks like the party has been consistent in their ways – it accepted a subsidy of 1 Lev, for example.

On the other hand the concerns that the new government will, once again, be announced from the TV screen are not without reason, though the quick withdrawal of the first prospective cabinet showed that common sense still prevails with the party’s leader. And yet:

“Slavi Trifonov and company must understand that having a good education and knowing foreign languages in itself does not make one fit to govern,” said historian and politician Prof. Dimitar Ludzhev for the BNR. “There are two other important criteria in world democratic practice – one is a professional career and the other is a biography as a public figure, i.e. what you have done for the benefit of the community.”

ITN says that the composition of the government will be ready by the end of the week. Whatever the horizon they may have in mind for it, “There Is Such a People” will have to come up with solutions to problems that have been accumulating for years:

“Things have to be done that entail a negative political effect,” says political communications expert Vessislava Tancheva. “What brings down governments is deep-going reform. You see what happens at even the slightest attempt that affects the interests of a given group. That is the big problem this parliament faces, and probably the next one too. The people in power will have to undertake to do things that the people who voted for them are not going to like.”

Interviews by Horizont channel, BNR

Editing by Yoan Kolev