Bulgaria's Opposition Embarks on 3rd Doomed No Confidence Motion

Politics » DOMESTIC | July 18, 2011, Monday // 15:31
Bulgaria: Bulgaria's Opposition Embarks on 3rd Doomed No Confidence Motion BSP leader Sergey Stanishev (left) and DPS deputy head Lyutvi Mestan (right) tabled the third no confidence vote of the Borisov Cabinet. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's centrist and leftist opposition has tabled to Parliament a no confidence motion for the Borisov Cabinet which has hardly any chances of being passed.

MPs from the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) submitted the third no confidence motion of the government of the center-right party GERB Monday afternoon.

The opposition's motives for the no confidence vote, which targets in particular Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, are the "failure of the government in home affairs and public safety, Bulgaria's postponed accession to the Schengen Agreement, the police brutality, and the violation of basic human rights."

The right-wing Blue Coalition, which used to back the Borisov Cabinet, has declared it will support a no confidence vote over what it regards as personal failures of Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov. The conservative Order, Law and Justice Party, RZS, is also backing the vote.

The far-right, nationalist Ataka, which was GERB's strongest ally since the latter's victory in the July 2009 general elections, recently officially declared they are now against GERB. Nevertheless, the nationalists will stand on the side of the cabinet in the upcoming vote.

In order for the vote to pass, 121 Members of the Parliament (half of all 240 plus 1) have to vote for. GERB has 117 MPs but it also enjoys the support of about a dozen renegade MPs, who left RZS, Ataka and the Blue Coalition, giving GERB the comfort of over 130 votes.

The opposition can hope to rally 94 votes in its best-case scenario – 40 from BSP, 35 from DPS, 14 from the Blue Coalition, and 5 from RZS.

This is the third no-confidence vote against the cabinet of Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, submitted by the opposition. The first one was over the failure of policies in the health care sector; the second, in June 2011 – failure in the anti-crisis policy.

It is unclear whether the 16 Ataka MPs (down from their original number of 21) will abstain, vote against, or will boycott the vote. In any of these cases, however, the survival of the Borisov Cabinet is certain.

Last week Bulgaria's nationalist party Ataka formally said it abandoned the minority government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and center-right ruling party GERB leaving the Cabinet's survival to depend on a dozen of "independent" renegade Mps.

After sticking by Borisov for two years, and providing GERB with a de facto ruling majority in Parliament, Friday Ataka leader Volen Siderov formally announced that his formation will no longer back the Borisov Cabinet.

The shift in the relations between Borisov and Siderov had been visible as in June the Cabinet survived a no confidence vote on economic crisis policies initiated by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) with the votes of the 117 GERB MPs and 9 independents (former members of the conservative party RZS and the nationalist Ataka), while its traditional earlier allies, Ataka with 17 MPs and the Blue Coalition MPs, did not take part at all in the voting. (The no confidence motion was overturned with 124 MPs against, 70 in favor, and 2 abstaining.)

The newly acquired significance of the 10 renegade MPs as being crucial for the survival of the Borisov Cabinet has become tangible after US Ambassador James Warlick in Sofia had a meeting with them. The USA has traditionally provided Borisov with strong support.  

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Tags: Blue Coalition, RZS, Ataka, GERB, no-confidence vote, parliament, interior ministry, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Interior Minister, home affairs, Schengen Agreement, Schengen Accession, Schengen Area, Boyko Borisov, Blue Coalition, Movement for Rights and Freedoms, ethnic Turkish, Bulgarian Socialist Party, GERB, DPS, BSP, no confidence vote, opposition

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