Bulgarian Parliament Elects Meglena Kuneva as New Education Minister

Bulgaria's parliament endorsed the nomination of Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva as the country's new education minister on Wednesday.

Kuneva was elected to the post in a 106-66 vote and 31 abstentions in the 240-seat Parliament.

Kuneva, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Policies Coordination and Institutional Affairs, was nominated to the post last week by the Reformist Bloc (RB), the junior partner in the minority coalition government with GERB party of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. She is leader of Bulgaria of the Citizens movement, one of the parties in the RB, and co-chairperson of the RB.

Her nomination was put forward after Borisov demanded the resignation of former Education Minister Todor Tanev over "systematically recurring problems in the education system" and proposed controversial changes to the school curriculum which had not been subject to broad public discussion.

Expectedly, opposition Socialists, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and independent MPs rejected Kuneva's nomination.

Before the vote, ABV party which has one minister in Borisov's cabinet but is not formally part of the coalition government, and nationalist Patriotic Front demanded that Kuneva's nomination was withdrawn.