There are substantial differences in the position of the president and the ruling majority, Daniel Smilov believes
Sofia, Bulgaria22 Aug 2023, 15:04 4953 read 3 comments
Russia and its related energy projects are the two main rifts between the president and those in power, but there is also a third – the constitutional role of the president in a parliamentary democracy.
This opinion was expressed to the BNR by political scientist Daniel Smilov, specialist in comparative constitutional law, program director of the Center for Liberal Strategies, associate professor of political theory in the Department of Political Science at the University of St. Kliment Ohridski.
“There are meaningful divergences in the position of Rumen Radev and the ruling majority, and hence the government. These divergences are in three directions – two are geopolitical, they are clear. The president, unlike the ruling majority, supports more positions related to Russia in the conflict her with Ukraine.
It is not a question of direct support of Russia, but most of the positions of President Radev coincide with the theses of the Kremlin – both about the struggle for peace and about the fact that Ukraine should capitulate in practice by being left without military aid, etc.
There is a serious rift here, the other one is over the energy projects, and the president there is much more closely connected to projects linked to Russia. … Radev’s caretaker government hid that there was interest from Ukraine in the Belene reactors. …
The third line is even more interesting, it is domestic political, we can say – constitutional. It is about what is the role of the president in a parliamentary democracy. …
His role is to some extent that of a corrective, but not the presidency to determine the routine policy of the country. In the parliamentary republic, the executive power belongs to the Council of Ministers,” he explained.
According to the political scientist, Radev’s idea is “to assemble something alternative to the current government, which includes GERB, DPS and “Vazrazhdane” or BSP”:
“In such an alternative construction, he would have a geopolitical ‘Trojan horse’. This explains his tactical actions.”
Daniel Smilov commented that the idea of a people’s movement, announced by the president in his speech at Shipka, is extremely inappropriate:
“It coincides with the geopolitical fault line in relation to Russia. An unacceptable attempt is being made to use the cultural and historical proximity between the Bulgarian and Russian people for political purposes in the current situation, including to support the aggression of the Putin regime. This seems to me not only tasteless, but also harmful for Bulgaria speculations related to historical memory”..
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2023-08-22 12:00:41
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