Members of Bulgaria's ruling party showered the centre-right government with praise and flattery on Thursday as it faced a confidence vote to preempt a censure motion by the opposition.

"God bless you, Mr Borisov!," Snezhana Dukova, a member of the parliamentary group of the ruling party, exclaimed in an emotional address to the prime minister.

"Let me congratulate you and your cabinet for the political manhood that you showed, the strong personality and will - rarely seen on Bulgaria's political stage – to push ahead with the reforms and rule in line with the European rules," she pointed out.

The government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is likely to survive the vote, as it enjoys the support of it key ally – the nationalist Attack party.

The ruling GERB party has 117 of a total of 240 seats in Bulgaria's unicameral parliament and has so far ruled with the support of 20 deputies from Ataka and 14 members of the small center-right Blue Coalition.

Ataka leader Volen Siderov has vowed his support by saying that there will be "no backstabbing" during the vote.

The Blue Coalition, which has been an uneasy and highly critical ally of GERB in spite of the prodding of the European People's Party (to which both entities belong), will most likely abstain during the vote of confidence as its MPs do not wish to vote the same way as the BSP and DPS, who declared they will vote against.

Under the Bulgarian legislation, to survive in a vote of confidence the government needs a simple majority of the votes of the present MPs, while in a no confidence vote it needs a simple majority of all 240 MPs to back it.

The other major difference between a vote of confidence and a no confidence vote is that in the first case, if the Prime Minister fails to get support, he has to resign; in such a scenario in the second case, he or she can come up with a new Cabinet.

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