Bulgaria's center-right government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov expectedly survived a string of two confidence votes on Thursday, which it tabled to preempt a censure motion by the opposition.

During the first run of the vote, a total of 141 members of parliament voted in favor of the government, 72 did not support the confidence motion, while another 13 abstained.

Then opposition MPs requested a re-vote due to difficulties and unclarities in the counting of the first vote, which was conducted with the untraditional roll-call procedure.

The rerun was also staged using the roll-call method and gave 140 in favor, 60 against and 14 abstentions. No-additional reruns are possible.

The positive outcome came after nearly eight hours of debates and thanks to the support of the ruling party's key ally, the nationalist Attack party, a few independent MPs and another two from a small conservative 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.

Nationalist Ataka leader Volen Siderov had vowed his support before the vote, saying that there will be "no backstabbing" during the parliamentary session.

The members of 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), abstained during the vote of confidence as its MPs did not wish to vote the same way as the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, who declared they will vote against.

Earlier in the day, as it started the debates on the requested confidence vote by the Borisov Cabinet, the Bulgarian parliament decided in favor of a roll call vote

At the initiative of the ruling party GERB, at the onset of the debates Thursday morning, the Parliament decided that each Member of Parliament will have to vote on the confidence motion by standing up from their seat and declaring whether they vote in favor, against, or abstain.

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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