Bulgarian Defence Expert to Lead Caretaker Cabinet Until July Polls

Stefan Yanev (left) in Brussels in February 2017 with then US Defence Secretary James Mattis. Photo: EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ

The caretaker cabinet was appointed after the failure by several political parties - outgoing ruling party GERB, There's Such a Nation and the Bulgarian Socialist Party - to muster a coalition after the inconclusive results of elections on April 4.

Tuesday also saw the last day in office of controversial longtime Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

Major changes are expected in Borissov's GERB party after internal discussions on Tuesday although he will probably retain his leadership position.

Yanev, who was born in the village of Popovitsa near Plovdiv in 1960, held various positions at the Defence Ministry in the 1990s and 2000s, including Director of Defence Policy and Security from 2009 to 2010.

He also held expert positions abroad - Head of the Transformations Department at the NATO Centre of Excellence in Defence Against Terrorism in Ankara between 2005 and 2007, and as a defence attaché at the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington from 2011 to 2014.

Between January and May 2017, he was first Deputy Defence Minister and then Defence Minister in the caretaker cabinet of Ognyan Gerdijkov.

Another politician from Gerdijkov's caretaker cabinet will also join the newly-appointed one - Gylyb Donev, who will head the Ministry of Labour and Social Sciences, as he did in 2017.

Velislav Minekov, an artist and one of the key voices in anti-government protests in 2020, has been appointed as Minister of Culture in the caretaker cabinet, while Bulgaria's ambassador to Denmark, Svetlan Stoev, will be Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The parliamentary elections are scheduled for July 11, and presidential elections...