Just how fractured the new Bulgarian National Assembly is and how reluctant the various political parties in it are to talk with each other can best be illustrated by the at times comical attempts to accomplish a relatively simple job: elect a speaker of parliament
Boyko Borisov's GERB, the largest party in the National Assembly, put forward a candidate; so did Kostadin Kostadinov's Revival; Slavi Trifonov's There Is Such a People; the BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party; and the PP-DB, or Changes Continued-Democratic Bulgaria.
Traditionally (if there can be talk of a tradition in Bulgaria's just 35 years of multi-party democracy), the first speaker of parliament in a new National Assembly, a largely ceremonial position, goes to the oldest MP. In this case, it was Silvi Kirilov, a medical doctor, who was elected an MP for the There Is Such a People party. The PP-DB vehemently objected, citing elements of Dr Kirilov's CV they found questionable. Raya Nazaryan, who was handpicked by Boyko Borisov, failed to garner enough votes to get the job. General Atanas Atanasov, the leader of the DSB (or Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria), whose wish to retire as speaker of parliament is well-known and largely discussed, spawned jokes that Bulgaria's MPs might elect not the best or the oldest MP, but... the shortest one (Gen Atanasov is seen on TV screens as not being particularly tall).
In keeping with Constitutional procedures, the new National Assembly cannot start work without having a speaker. Consequently, the president cannot set off the horse-trading bit for a new government. The impasse threatened to prompt yet another Constitutional crisis.
So, the MPs voted once, twice, thrice, four times... and so on, to the bemusement of Bulgarians who watched TV with increasing frustration that taxpayers' money was being used to pay the salaries of what they thought was obviously incompetent and arrogant MPs.
In the end, however, the National Assembly agreed on the candidature on Nataliya Kiselova, an associate professor of law, who had been put forward by the BSP.
Some other ideas of the MPs in the new parliament include changing the beginning of the work day from 9am to 1pm "to avoid the rush-hour traffic" and introducing alcohol and drug tests prior to debates on the floor.
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