This National Assembly is hardly going to find any approach towards the dialogue that would produce the much-needed, homogeneous majority that the nation needs in order to have a strong Euro-Atlantic governance in Bulgaria, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Mustafa Karadayi told president Rumen Radev at a consultative meeting on Monday.
Radev started a series of talks with party representatives on the likelihood of forming a new government within the term of the 47th National Assembly. MRF deputy chairmen Stanislav Anastassov and Ahmed Ahmedov, and MRF parliamentary group deputy chair Hamid Hamid also attended the discussion.
Therefore, we must face the voters again. They should be the ones charging the political parties with the responsibility and the authority. We need to enter the next parliament not with the current hatred and negativity, but with our values, goals, and priorities for the state, Karadayi categorically said.
This way only we will be able to search for a values-based, homogenous, and stable Euro-Atlantic government in the next National Assembly, the MRF leader pointed out. He announced that the Movement's proposals for national priorities include energy and food security and independence.
To the many calamities the country is experiencing, today we can also add a political crisis, which is the natural end of a policy based on lies and hatred, Mustafa Karadayi said in his analysis of the situation in the country.
The coalition, formed by parties stretching from one to the other extreme of the political spectrum, was not built on values and politics, but on negation. Its entire activity was based on a lie. We in the National Assembly tried to expose in various ways the lies that were advocated to us by the former government, the MRF leader said. And he added that the way out of the political crisis was a requirement for overcoming the other predicaments.
We took on the way out of this situation with the successful vote of no confidence in the failed government. This was a government that refused any form of dialogue between the incumbents and the opposition to search for solutions to the crisis and the problems Bulgarian citizens have. Most recently we found out that the dialogue was missing even within the ruling majority, Karadayi said.
They called themselves “the change” (We Continue the Change is the name of their party) and they tried to demonstrate that violating the Constitution and the law in this country is a normal practice, if done by the right people. And those who tried to defend democracy and the rule of law in Bulgaria, were name-called “behind-the-scenes”, “mafia”, “traitors”, “coup plotters”. With such a behaviour no way out of the crisis could possibly be found, he said.
To find a way out of the disaster, we must, through dialogue, restore normality in Bulgarian political life. We must reinstate democracy and the rule of law. We must also bring back statehood, Karadayi said. He stressed that the MRF had always fought corruption and behind-the-scenes mongering, had always upheld the rule of law, and had proven its consistency over the years.
It is at a challenging moment for the country that I am launching these consultations on searching to form another government in this parliament, president Rumen Radev told the leadership of the MRF, emphasizing that the political crisis had already been added to all other disasters in the land.
You stand close to your constituents, you know their problems - from rising prices and the ongoing war to all the uncertainty that crises bring, the president said. "We must not allow Bulgaria to remain on the periphery of Europe, we must attract much more investment, and that means having a much more ambitious, unifying and consistent foreign policy”, he explained.
The political experience that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms gained throughout the years of transition also entails a high-level responsibility to the voters. The responsible attitude of your Movement, shown during the transition, is a fact. The point is that in times of crisis you have always appealed for dialogue, Radev said.
Bulgaria is expecting steady efforts by all political parties in the fight against corruption and the establishment of the rule of law, the head of state further said. He asked the MRF leadership whether the movement sees enough potential in this National Assembly to seek a new governing majority, with what mechanisms this can be achieved and whether there is a successful formula for overcoming the political crisis.
