Bulgarian Opposition Urges Cabinet to Resign amid Protests

Domestic | February 18, 2013, Monday| 911 views

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Bulgaria: Bulgarian Opposition Urges Cabinet to Resign amid Protests

Photo by BGNES

All of Bulgaria's opposition parties have requested a step down of PM Boyko Borisov's cabinet following huge protests and the resignation of Vice-PM and FinMin Simeon Djankov.

Former PMs, Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Sergey Stanishev, and rightist Democrats for Strong Bulgaria chair Ivan Kostov, have united in saying that Djankov's resignation is a facade attempt at appeasing protesters and will not resolve any problems.

The Socialists and rightists however have diverged, with the Socialists requesting snap elections and the rightists calling for a new caretaker cabinet.

Liberal Movement for Rights and Freedoms and nationalists from Ataka have also issued strong calls for early elections, just months ahead of regular July 2013 general elections.

"The Borisov cabinet has manifestly lost the trust of Bulgaria's citizens. Only one solution is possible - early elections," stated the Socialists' parliamentary group.

"Boyko Borisov has lost his legitimacy as Bulgaria's PM," said Movement for Rights and Freedoms Leader Lyutvi Mestan.

Ataka leader Volen Siderov on his part criticized Borisov for failing to provide any, much less coherent explanation for the firing of Djankov, which according to him signifies a complete failure of cabinet as a whole.

Rightist leaders Ivan Kostov and Martin Dimitrov also urged the cabinet to step down, but said that it would be more practical to have a caretaker cabinet until the July 2013 popular vote.

All of the opposition parties stated that they will not back the proposed cabinet reshuffles to fill in Djankov's vacated position.

MPs from ruling GERB party have however stated that they continue to unconditionally support Borisov's cabinet.

GERB has a comfortable large minority of 117 MPs out of 240, but can count on the votes of some non-aligned MPs.

Yane Yanev, leader of the Order, Law and Justice (RZS) party, the few MPs of which sit in Parliament as non-aligned, has stated that the party will decide on its position Tuesday.