It will be difficult for the "Zhelyazkov" cabinet to fulfill the high expectations it is charged with, because it is a rather complex, heterogeneous coalition. What will help it is that things are very good in the opposition – part of the opposition is more on the side of the ruling party, and this will become increasingly clear and visible with the votes on specific policies. This was said by political scientist Assoc. Prof. Daniel Smilov in the program "Metronome" on Radio "Focus".
"Borisov preferred to have a coalition that is more diverse in content, but still has the opportunity to negotiate and leave the door open, especially for "New Beginning" and Delyan Peevski. So there are possibilities that in practice some of the opposition parties may turn out to be not as oppositional as they seem at the very beginning."
According to him, there are some surprising and interesting appointments in the ministerial staff, giving Daniel Mitov as an example in the Ministry of the Interior. The other important thing that needs to be monitored, according to him, are the policies in the budgetary and fiscal sphere, where there is a need to reduce spending and it will be interesting how this will be done."With the first appointments in this ministry, it is clear that people who were associated with Borisov's government until 2020 are now returning to it. The main thing is not to interpret this as some attempt to rehabilitate the government until 2020 and as an invitation to restore them or at least the way in which this "Borisov", "Borisov-Peevski" model was implemented. It would be a mistake to go down this path, because it would accumulate the same tensions and the same resistance in society as was seen in 2020-2021."
He is also interested in what program this agreement on the formation of the cabinet will be consolidated with. The agreement does not contain many new policies and specifics, but there are some things that will certainly cause a lot of debate, such as removing the required quorum and making referendums easier. "We need to see what will be embedded in the programmatic intentions of this coalition before we make more valid predictions about its existence and its end in time.“
Two red lines were drawn for GERB in forming this cabinet - not to form a coalition with a pro-Russian party in the context of the Ukrainian war, the second red line was not to openly govern with the MRF - currently one of the MRFs is openly incorporated into the governing majority, which, according to him, opens the door for the other. "These are hidden tensions that are embedded by design in this coalition and the management of these tensions will be an important factor for its stability,“ he added.
Assoc. Prof. Smilov is categorical that the expectation that everything depends on the new American policy with the coming to power of Donald Trump, and that everything in Bulgaria can turn 180 degrees depending on American policy, is exaggerated.