Bulgaria’s New Cabinet

The new executive power in Bulgaria will be inaugurated at a special ceremony on Wednesday morning at the Council of Ministers. The former Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg and his ministers are to “hand down” the power to the new cabinet headed by the new PM Sergey Stanishev. Later in the day each former minister will inaugurate his new successor into the work at the ministries.

The government formed by Bulgaria’s socialists, centrists and ethnic Turks was installed Tuesday. Socialist Party leader Sergey Stanishev, 39, claimed the post of Prime Minister, almost two months after the general elections and one failed attempt to form a government. His nomination was backed by 168 of the 235 lawmakers who voted; 67 opposed Stanishev’s candidacy. Parliament members okayed the structure of the new Cabinet with a 169-67 vote, a total of 236 MPs participated.

The line-up of the Cabinet was approved by 169 lawmakers, while 68 opposed it. The ministerial seats in the cabinet are distributed 8:5:3 among the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the centrist Simeon II National Movement and the predominantly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms respectively. The new ministers swore in minutes after the vote.