Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetanov was the major no show in Parliament in the last plenary day of 2010. Photo by BGNES
Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov caused an uproar in Parliament as opposition MPs demanded that he showed up to give explanation over a controversial tapping case.
MPs from the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) awaited Tsvetanov all day causing them to remain in the Parliamentary building longer than they usually do.
They protested vigorously a decision of Parliament Chair Tsetska Tsacheva to proceed to another issue on the agenda in the Parliament's last working day of the year after it became clear that Tsvetanov is not in the plenary hall.
Tsvetanov was summoned to provide explanations about the actions of the Interior Ministry in the case of a still-born child in Gorna Oryahovitsa in which four doctors were arrested on suspicions they had murdered a baby who was born alive. The Interior turned out to have been tapping the phone of the hospital head and released the tapes displaying cynical language used by the doctors that shocked the Bulgarian public. Eventually, however, the child was found to have been still-born.
"I cannot force him inside the plenary hall. He will show up whenever he wishes to speak," Bulgarian Parliament Chair Tsacheva told the furious opposition MPs with respect to Tsvetanov's absence.
Tsvetanov appeared in Parliament only after 8 pm Wednesday night at which point there was no quorum in the plenary hall for his hearing as most MPs had left. This prompted Tsacheva to thank him for showing up without giving him the floor.