Diplomat Heads Caretaker Cabinet, C-Bank Vice Governor Appointed FinMin
Marin Raikov, Bulgaria's ambassador to Paris, will head the caretaker cabinet which president Rosen Plevneliev appointed on Tuesday, some three weeks after street protests toppled the centre-right government of Boiko Borisov.
Kalin Hristov, vice-governor of the central bank, will serve as finance minister in the cabinet which will have three deputy prime ministers. Assen Vassilev, a professor in economics and co-founder and director of an economic think-tank with the Sofia University, will be the new economy minister.
Energy, environment protection and social policy will top the agenda of the cabinet which will run the country until snap elections are held on May 12, the president said in an address to the nation. The president will dissolve the National Assembly on March 15.
"Let us not allow this political crisis to grow into an economic one," the president said.
Plevneliev had to appoint a caretaker cabinet after the three biggest parties in parliament - GERB, the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the mainly ethnic Turks' party DPS - declined to form an interim government following the collapse of Borisov's cabinet.
Borisov's government resigned on February 20 after a week of street rallies across the country which started as a protest against high electricity bills but escalated into anti-government marches.