The draft rules of procedure of the National Assembly were adopted at first reading in plenary session on Thursday (June 6th). The vicious practice of buying MPs will not go down in history for one simple reason. As soon as there is demand, there is supply, and what the new parliamentary majority lacks is precisely MPs. On this currency will depend not only the future quorum in plenary sessions, but the passage of several bills. And if the prerequisites are met, the actual swarming of parties in the already fragile 42nd National Assembly is only a matter of time.
Texts, which caused controversy for almost two weeks – first the temporary committee for drafting the regulations, and then during their first reading in plenary were developed by socialist BSP and adopted with the support of ethnic-Turk-supported MRF. Deputies of the largest party in the Parliament GERB did not participate in the discussions in committees and hottest debates in the hall on Wednesday, leading to clashes between GERB and nationalist Ataka party prompted their idea not to register for the meeting on Thursday. For the first time in its constitution the National Assembly gathered the required quorum by half an hour late to begin its regular session and after an impassioned speech by the leader Boyko Borisov his parliamentary group left the plenary hall and announced they would no longer participate in the work of the National Assembly. It is normal thing the first political party to appoint the chairman of the Parliament. Normally the first political party will have more seats in the committee chairmanships. Why a party which is three times smaller than us, such as MRF, should dominate the government and dominate the parliament We are the first political force and we will behave as such. protested Borisov, suggesting that his party will not make compromises and is preparing for new election in a few months.
At the heart of the fierce quarrel was the desire of the government to stop shopping for MPs votes, which was actually introduced by GERB. For this purpose, Maya Manolova and Yanaki Stoilov started the development of specific amendments to the Political Parties Act, which placed a cross on the principle money follows the MP. So all MPs who leave or are expelled from their parliamentary group will remain without funding, which according to the two MPs will be a sufficient motive for lawmakers not to move to foreign parties. Loopholes, however, are always in place and one of them is right in the text of the rules of procedure of the National Assembly. Deputy chairman of the MRF Christo Bisserov offered the bans before MPs who left their initial party to form new groups to be lifted. What helped here is guaranteed by the Constitution principle of free mandate that allows MPs to leave formations when they disagree with their party’s policies.
On these grounds lawmakers allowed future rebels to form their own groups and even made them free to choose their names. Prohibition of such MPs to join existing parties, however, received unanimous approval of the majority in the Chamber. It is not clear how the new rules of parliament will apply, assuming the hypothesis that on one reason or another, the origin of the changes – namely amendments to government subsidies rules to the Law on Political Parties subsequently fails to be adopted in plenary.
Similar questions, however, are a small fret amid the spectacular restructuring that may occur in the National Assembly after the approval of the new rules. Possibility of independent MPs to form their own groups creates preconditions for artificial fracturing of existing formations and the formation of new ones – just according to the model of the previous parliament, but without the factor subsidy. Real victims of the new rules will be exactly the parties in opposition, especially GERB, because, as Anton Koutev of BSP noted, The Parliament can work without their presence.
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