WCC-DB against Gabriel’s cabinet, early elections seem to be most likely outcome

• WCC-DB accuses GERB and its nominee for PM Gabriel in submitting a government including candidates for ministers from WCC-DB who have not agreed to participate in such a cabinet
• Early elections looming as WCC-DB nominees for ministers will submit declarations against their inclusion in Gabriel's project cabinet and WCC-DB is unlikely to vote to support cabinet
• WCC-DB leaders accuse GERB of purposefully sabotaging negotiations as WCC-DB has refused to secure MRF and MRF's leader Delyan Peevski participation in election of members of judiciary bodies

WCC-DB had not agreed to support the proposed government, WCC-DB stated a few hours after GERB's nominee for PM Mariya Gabriel presented her project cabinet to the President Rumen Radev yesterday. GERB has sabotaged the negotiations, WCC-DB claimed. Its statement paves the way for a snap election, as we think that the likelihood of GERB and WCC-DB successfully agreeing on a joint cabinet in the last minute is very low after the chaos Gabriel triggered by proposing a government, which has not been agreed with WCC-DB. Nevertheless, we note that WCC-DB's representative and PM in resignation Nikolay Denkov still suggested that the talks between the two parties can continue early on Wednesday morning, although he reiterated that Gabriel's surprising proposal for cabinet was unacceptable and that a reasonable communication between the two parties is necessary at present. Denkov nevertheless admitted that the idea for continuation of the talks was only his opinion and he has no idea if WCC-DB leaders would be willing to negotiate anymore.

At a press conference late on Mar 19, the WCC-DB leaders said that GERB leader Boyko Borissov and his unofficial ally, MRF leader Delyan Peevski, have successfully achieved their goal to sabotage the negotiations with WCC-DB and terminate the possibility for a joint government between WCC-DB and GERB. The project cabinet pushed forward by Gabriel has not been agreed with WCC-DB and a large part of the nominated ministers from WCC-DB have not agreed to participate in this cabinet, including PM in resignation Nikolay Denkov, Denkov himself announced in the evening of Mar 19. Denkov, as well as the other nominees from WCC-DB, were firm that they did not want to be part of such a cabinet and will submit declarations for that purpose. The two parties have not reached a final agreement on the document about their joint government either, Denkov added, noting that the document had been discussed but a few controversial texts were not cleared up. WCC-DB's collective organs have not issued a decision agreeing that WCC-DB would participate in this cabinet, Denkov stressed, noting that it was necessary and GERB was aware of that. WCC-DB was ready to continue the negotiations until a final agreement is possible, but GERB proved that it only simulated to be negotiating, Denkov added. Denkov also said that the replacement of defence minister Todor Tagarev has not been put on the agenda and discussed during the talks, but Gabriel nevertheless had replaced him in her list of ministers.

WCC-DB co-leader Asen Vasilev was more expressive, calling Gabriel's decision to propose a cabinet without the agreement of WCC-DB as the biggest falsification in the Bulgarian history and accusing Gabriel of becoming the newest representative of the mafia in Bulgaria. Kiril Petkov, the other co-leader of WCC-DB, said that he no longer trusted Gabriel and accused GERB leader Borissov of choosing to stay dependent on MRF leader Peevski. The third co-leader of WCC-DB Hristo Ivanov added that the GERB negotiating team attempted to terminate the negotiations several times during the negotiating process in the past few days after GERB saw that its efforts to secure a key role of MRF and the exclusive role of Peevski in the appointments of the judiciary system institutions, where a majority of 160 MPs is needed to appoint them. WCC-DB has not signed the agreement for joint government due to the remaining controversial texts in it, Ivanov highlighted. In regards to the cabinet composition, Ivanov said that WCC-DB was inclined to make compromises but the issue is no longer related to one or another minister candidate, but to the question how political compromises and decisions will be possible in Bulgaria anymore. He reiterated his conviction that Peevski was the main culprit for the termination of the negotiations in this way, as he wanted to have his key role in the election of judiciary institutions guaranteed in official and documented way.

President Rumen Radev has already signed the decree inviting the parliament to vote the cabinet proposed by Mariya Gabriel and has refused to withdraw the decree. We note that Gabriel has the right to reshuffle her draft cabinet before the voting, so she could come up with new candidates following the decision of the included nominees from WCC-DB to submit declarations withdrawing their nominations. So far, only MRF has firmly declared its support for the cabinet, while WCC-DB will vote against it, judging by the statements of its leaders, in our view. We recall that 121 MPs are required to vote in order to elect a new government, while GERB and MRF have 105 MPs together. The only option for these votes to be sufficient to approve Gabriel's government is if 31 MPs from the other parties are absent during the plenary session, thus reducing the quorum, but we consider this scenario unlikely. We do not expect the remaining three opposition parties BSP, Vuzrazhdane, and TISP to vote in favour of the cabinet either. All in all, the scenario of an early parliamentary election held simultaneously with the elections for European Parliament in early June is the most likely outcome of the situation, in our view. We think that the renewed political instability may be in particular risky for Bulgaria's efforts to join the eurozone in 2025, as well as for its absorption of EU funds under the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF).