The municipal council in Sofia will finally have a chairman and will begin to work in substance. After three months of crisis and powerlessness, a broad agreement has been reached to vote for the candidate of “We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria” (PP-DB) and “Save Sofia” Tsvetomir Petrov. As Mediapool wrote last week, he will be in the position temporarily – until the summer vacation of the mayors.
Support for Tsvetomir Petrov comes from all parties except “There is such a people”. Slavi Trifonov’s party nominated Plamen Danailov for chairman.
However, for the candidate of PP-DB and “Save Sofia” Tsvetomir Petrov will also vote from GERB, whose leader Boyko Borisov said on Wednesday that he wants new elections in the capital, BSP, whose party leadership declared against it, as well as some of the councilors of “Revival”. Apparently, the “Vazrazhdane” group split after its leader Deyan Nikolov talked about buying advisers and nominated his colleague Emil Dimitrov for the post of chairman.
Apart from the BSP, GERB and part of “Vazrazhdane”, support for Tsvetomir Petrov is also expected from “Sinya Sofia” and from the only mayor from VMRO, Carlos Contrera.
The discrepancy between the opinion of the party leaders and the actions of the municipal councilors was explained by concern for Sofia and by decisions of the local structures to unblock the work in the council. When asked why the leader of GERB, Cornelia Ninova, declared against voting for the chairman of PP-DB and “Save Sofia”, the head of the city organization of the left, Ivan Takov, answered that he did not know what Ninova said and that there was a decision of the BSP city council for broad support for president.
The agreement regarding the candidacy of Tsvetomir Petrov was announced even before the beginning of the meeting planned for today. Before the next edition of the already three-month-long first meeting of the Metropolitan Municipal Council (SOC), the municipal councilors gathered at the so-called “chairman’s council”. After that, they jointly announced that an agreement had been reached on the election of Petrov, but this does not mean that there is political support for the management of PP-DB and “Save Sofia”. Both GERB, BSP and Sinya Sofia stated that the general vote for the candidate of the largest group does not mean that an “assembly, welding, coalition, wedding” or some other form of governing coalition has been achieved.
Some of the mayors from “Vazrazhdane”, as well as BSP and GERB, declared that they would be the opposition in the council. The election of Tsvetomir Petrov was only an administrative decision in order for the council to function and not to reach a situation where its legitimacy would be called into question. This could happen if a chairman was not elected by February 13. Then, according to some lawyers, a text from the Law on Local Self-Government and Local Administration could be applied, according to which the municipal council is dissolved if it does not work for three months.
The first meeting of the new Metropolitan Municipal Council after the elections held on October 29, 2023 was on November 13, 2023.
After several failed attempts Boris Bonev from “Save Sofia” to become the chairman of the SOS at the last meeting, which was held on January 25, the group with the most municipal councilors “We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria” and “Save Sofia” proposed a new name – that of the municipal councilor Tsvetomir Petrov.
Stay tuned for details.
2024-02-08 08:30:00
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