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On June 23, the National Assembly adopted procedural rules for the terms and conditions for proposing candidates for Bulgarian National Bank governor
Three candidacies for governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) have been submitted to the office of the 49th National Assembly in the course of the procedure for nominating the head of the Bulgarian central bank, which ended on Friday at 6 pm, according to a reference on the website of the National Assembly.
In chronological order, the submitted candidacies are: Dr. Lyubomir Hristov, proposed by Vazrazhdane (submitted on June 28), current governor Dimitar Radev, proposed by GERB-UDF (July 5), and Nikolay Kavardzhikliev, who was nominated by BSP for Bulgaria (July 7).
On June 23, the National Assembly adopted procedural rules for the terms and conditions for proposing candidates for Bulgarian National Bank governor, according to which proposals are to be made by parliamentary groups within 14 days of the adoption of the rules. The longer deadline was adopted after a review of the original decision, which required applications to be submitted within 7 days.
How will the new governor be selected?
After the National Assembly hold a vote on the candidacies, the candidate who receives more than half of the votes of the MPs present will be considered elected. If several candidates receive more than half of the votes, the candidate who received the most votes will be elected. If none of the candidates receive the necessary votes, a runoff vote will be held between the two candidates with most votes. If none of the candidates receives the necessary votes during the second vote, the National Assembly will adopt a decision to open a new election procedure.
Yet another selection attempt
This is the third consecutive attempt to elect a BNB governor after unsuccessful procedures in the 46th and 47th National Assembly, and the previous parliament did not even start one.
The current head of the bank, Dimitar Radev, was elected on July 14, 2015, during an extraordinary session of the 43rd National Assembly. His candidacy was nominated by the parliamentary group of the GERB party and by the parliamentary group of the Reformist Bloc. Bulgarian National Bank Act stipulates that the governor of the bank is elected for a term of 6 years, which means that the mandate of Dimitar Radev expired on July 15, 2021.
The procedure for electing a new governor of the bank was launched in the 46th, 47th and 49th National Assembly.
