Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov will propose to his Cabinet to ask the Parliament for a confidence vote about the overall policies of the government.

This was announced late Tuesday night by the press center of the ruling center-right party GERB.

During the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet on Wednesday, Borisov will offer to his ministers to request a confidence vote in Parliament.

Borisov first presented his initiative to ask for a confidence vote to the Executive Commission of the GERB party late Tuesday night.

The Executive Commission of GERB has supported unanimously the motion of the Prime Minister and party chair.

The announcement of the GERB party does not cite specific reasons for demanding a confidence vote in Parliament “on the overall policies of the government” but Borisov’s move is most likely the result of the “Tapegate” - the leaking to the public of discrediting conversations between key Bulgarian political figures, including Prime Minister Borisov.

The tapes, whose authenticity is questioned, were leaked recently by the Galeria weekly contain conversations that provide evidence of political cover-ups on part of the Borisov government for certain companies in Bulgaria such as Lukoil, Billa, and the Ledenika brewery, and also expose a conflict between Bulgaria's two Deputy Prime Ministers.

On Sunday, Bulgaria's PM Boyko Borisov said that he wants to get foreign experts to check the authenticity of the tapes, declaring them to be outright manipulations.

The latest Tapegate scandal was triggered end of last week by the release of tapes of conversations between Borisov and the Director of the Customs Agency, Vanyo Tanov.

The recordings, which authenticity is yet to be proven, allege Borisov provided a cover-up for the owner of the "Ledenika" beer company, Mihail Mihov.

The tapes reveal that Borisov had called Tanov with an order to immediately pull the tax agents out of the factory and that the "Ledenika" boss personally complained to the PM.

Borisov’s motion to request a vote of confidence for his government in Parliament has come just as the major opposition parties – the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) have declared they were preparing to demand a second no confidence of the Borisov Cabinet, after their first no confidence attempt over health policy failed in 2010.

Borisov center-right party GERB has 117 MPs out of a total of 240 but it relies on the support of the nationalist party Ataka and its 21 MPs; the rightist Blue Coalition with its 15 MPs has been a rather critical and reluctant ally of GERB, often pushed into that role by the European People’s Party.

A vote against the Borisov Cabinet in the Bulgarian Parliament seems highly unlikely as the BSP and DPS, and the marginal conservative party RZS, which has been at war with government recently, can hardly muster more than 80 votes.

Shortly after the GERB press center announced Borisov's intention to go for a confidence vote in Parliament, Volen Siderov, the leader of the nationalist party Ataka, which has been an informal ally of the ruling party, has declared hardline support for the Cabinet, and vowed "no backstabbing" on part of his formation.

If held, Borisov's confidence vote in Parliament will be the third in Bulgaria's newest history, after the 1992 confidence vote of the right-wing government of Filip Dimitrov, which brought it down after 15 months in power as the ethnic Turkish party DPS withdrew its support. The second vote of confidence was in 1994; it was successful for the Cabinet of Lyuben Berov, which succeeded Dimitrov's Cabinet.

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