The formerly ruling GERB party held a surprise news conference on Thursday to announce that they are pulling out their nomination for Chairperson of the new Central Election Commission (CEC). The decision was announced by party leader and outgoing Prime Minister Boiko Borissov. He said that only GERB had courage to nominate a CEC Chair and the rest escaped from responsibility.

He was referring to the fact that GERB's Krassimir Tsipov, a former deputy interior minister, was the only nominee for the position of CEC leader when President Rumen Radev held consultations with the parliamentary groups on the CEC composition. Despite their objections to Tsipov personally or to having the new CEC headed by a GERB representative, none of the other five parliamentary groups had their own candidate for the top position at CEC.

Tsipov's withdrawal comes as a surprise after GERB officials passionately argued on Wednesday that CEC should be headed by a representative of GERB as the largest party in Parliament.

Borissov said that the other political forces in the new legislature have conspired not to nominate a chairperson and described the situation as a trap for GERB because if the new CEC fails with the tasks assigned to it by the newly amended Election Code, Tsipov would have been held to account.

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