Bulgaria Ethnic Turkish Leader: New Government Has 100 Days to Prove Itself

Amidst wide-spread debates about how long Bulgaria's new minority government will survive, the leader of the ethnic Turkish party denounced the forecast he recently made.

"I have never said the government will survive one year. I just said that the first year and a half will be very difficult in terms of overcoming the crisis," Ahmed Dogan told journalists on Monday, hours after the swearing-in ceremony of the new government.

He said the new government had 100 days to prove its potential to deal with the problems the country faces.

"Each government has the right to have 100 days, during which to show what it can do in terms of appointing the right people, defining its priorities and executing them," Dogan said.

He warned that the government should have prepared a preventing program for updating the budget not later than October.

Dogan, one of the most experienced politicians on the Bulgarian scene, said the minority government relies on a shaky support in parliament and warned that the situation is very complicated.

"GERB party has a parliamentary group of 116 MPs, 115 of whom have no experience. I hope they will have one soon," Dogan said.

The formerly opposition GERB party of Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov won by far the most seats in Bulgarian parliamentary elections on July 5 and fell just a few short of an absolute majority.

Analysts attribute the huge number of votes that GERB collected and the relatively high election turnout to a scandalous statement the leader of the Turkish party Ahmed Dogan made during the election campaign.

Ahmed Dogan, whose party was member of the government for the last eight years, stirred a fierce political controversy last month after openly claiming to be Bulgaria's back seat ruler.

"I am the instrument in power that allocates the portions to the firms in the country. I want you to be very aware of this fact", Dogan said in a video footage from an election campaign meeting on June 18, 2009, in the village of Kochan, Satovcha Municipality, in southwest Bulgaria.

Dogan described his ethnic party as a virus, which is impossible to cure. According to him great times are ahead for the party, which will come to recruit one day more than one million members.

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