Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev has issued a decree convening the first session of the newly elected 50^th National Assembly on June 19, 2024. At the recent snap elections, Bulgarians sent seven political formations to the new parliament. The first six of them were also present in the previous parliament, but the distribution of power is now different. The new "star" is the political formation Velichie which has 13 MPs in the National Assembly.

Traditionally, the first session of the newly elected parliament is chaired by the oldest MP. This honor this time goes to 73-year-old Silvi Kirilov from "There Is Such a People" party. In today's session, the MPs are expected to be sworn in and elect the chairperson of Bulgaria’s legislature. 

The current parliament was elected after early elections, which will go down in history with the exceptionally low voter turnout- 34.41%. In an interview with Radio Bulgaria, Professor Ognyan Gerdzhikov tried to interpret the message left by voters with their reluctance to go to the polls and exercise their civic right to vote. Ognyan Gerdzhikov is a jurist, professor of commercial law and former chairman of the National Assembly. He also served as caretaker Prime Minister of Bulgaria:

"This is an anti-record. It shows that this model seems to be exhausted. Something radically different needs to be sought. Perhaps we should move to a mixed electoral system, not just a proportional one, but a majoritarian-proportional system. This might be a prerequisite for a new meaningful political project. There is talk about such a project around the country’s head of state. That time may have come, as these processes have matured in our society."

Although he is not an expert in constitutional law, Ognyan Gerdzhikov believes that a majoritarian-proportional system would provide a greater opportunity for highly qualified people from various fields to run for and be elected as MPs.

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The personality of the National Assembly speaker is of utmost importance for the functioning and the credibility of the legislature, which, together with the executive and the judiciary, form the three pillars on which Bulgaria’s state structure rests. In this context, Professor Gerdzhikov commented that a lawyer should head the new National Assembly. However, according to him, the highly qualified lawyers entering the last parliaments are few and far between. This deficiency affects the quality of legislation, which is at an amateur level, noted Professor Gerdzhikov. The quality of legislative activity is also at the root of the significant decline in trust towards the Bulgarian parliament over the past decade.

"Unlike all developed countries in Europe, which have advisory bodies of specialists in the respective fields, our parliament does not afford itself this luxury, and things unfold on the principle of pure amateurism, with lobbyist-driven and poorly crafted laws. Even the recent amendments to the Constitution demonstrate such glaring incompetence in many aspects. I strongly hope that the Constitutional Court will not remain indifferent to this", said Ognyan Gerdzhikov.

As for the possibility of achieving important goals in the 50^th National Assembly, such as joining the eurozone and Schengen by land, Professor Gerdzhikov is rather skeptical.

"I really wish we could expect it, but we seem to be moving away from these two goals rather than getting closer. We could have achieved this 2-3 years ago, but we couldn't do it. I'm not overly optimistic that we will be able to do that in the near future."

The vote for several anti-system political formations stood out against the backdrop of low turnout. Two of them, There is Such a People and Velichie, became part of the 50th National Assembly, while the third one, MECH, received nearly 3% of the votes.

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"All this shows that these democratic processes have reached a critical minimum, which is why such anti-establishment parties are flourishing, some of which are quite embarrassing", said Ognyan Gerdzhikov.

Ognyan Gerdzhikov is not optimistic about the long-term horizon for the 50th National Assembly. "Sometime in the autumn, there may have to be new elections", Ognyan Gerdzhikov concluded. 

See also:

• Bulgaria’s National Assembly marks 143rd anniversary