PM: Nothing stops us from resigning except responsibility to maintain the state

GERB will not resign because they feel responsible to preserve the state. This was stated by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in a video address on Facebook shortly before 11 pm on July 11. He spoke out against hate speech and violence. He called on political opponents to be statesmen and to rise above their party affiliations.

In his address, the prime minister explained why GERB will not step down.

Nothing keeps us in power except the responsibility that if the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) take over, it will break the state. They are not capable to govern. They have proved it. Every time they enter into government, EU funds are closed. If the BSP comes into power, EU funds stop immediately, Borissov said.

The PM said his request to the protesters was to prevent spilling blood. Protest as much as you want, but protect the police.

PM Borissov’s address comes after a day of events in Bulgaria, which started with tension related to police preventing people from reaching by sea and land the Rossenets beach on the Southern Black Sea coast to participate in a scheduled protest. The police action was prompted by their attempts to prevent clashes between protesters and counterprotesters.

Later during the day, at 15:00 pm, President Radev gave an address on the public service broadcaster BNT, calling for the resignation of the government and the chief prosecutor.

“Corruption, fear, prosecutorial racketeering and inaction against thievery, trampling on the presumption of innocence, suffocation of freedom of speech, unscrupulous lies and lack of justice are what the Bulgarians have rebelled against,” Radev said.

“Anger is deep, accumulated over the years, and cannot be suppressed with fear and force,” Radev said in the address.

Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor, Ivan Geshev, responded on Twitter saying that President Radev had violated Bulgaria’s constitution.

“The ‘unifier of the nation’ once again allowed himself to violate the independence of the judiciary and to exert harsh pressure on the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Bulgaria,” Geshev wrote.

By doing so, Radev had violated the constitution, which regulates the separation of powers, Geshev said..

Later on Saturday afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev, accompanied by two cabinet ministers, responded to Radev’s statement at a special news conference.

I will not say the government wants the President’s resignation. I want the Bulgarian President to serve his term, although I do not agree with most of the theses he expresses publicly. We protect the state because we have no other state, Deputy PM Donched said.

In his statement, Radev had asked for all the power in the state, immediately and without being subject to control, Donchev added.

Another protest in support of the presidential institution took place on July 11. The procession went around the central part of Sofia. The square in front of the Presidency and Council of Ministers was full of people until 11 pm.