Bulgaria Right-Wing UDF, GERB Vow to Tie the Knot after Snap Polls
Politics | January 11, 2008, Friday
Boyko Borisov (R), mayor of Sofia and leader of the extremely popular GERB, sided by his closest aide Tsvetan Tsvetanov (M), reached out to the right-wing UDF party of Plamen Yurukov (L) in a bid to bring about snap polls. Photo by Nadya Kotseva (SPA)
Boyko Borisov, mayor of Sofia and leader of the fledgling but extremely popular GERB party, has renewed his calls for early general elections, backed by the biggest right-wing party UDF.
The allegiance between the two parties, first made public at the end of last year, has been strengthened by the urgent need for snap polls in the wake of the drug trafficking scandal that rocked the Interior last week, it emerged on Friday when the leaders of the two parties met.
Boyko Borisov and Plamen Yurukov announced that their parties will run solo in the next general elections, but are more than willing to form a government together.
"The Union of Democratic Forces will be the first party that GERB will invite for coalition partners," Borissov told reporters.
Borissov, archenemy of the ruling coalition, underlined that the currently ruling Socialist Party and their junior partners, the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, are ruled out as potential coalition partners.
The meeting came just a day after UDF leader Plamen Yurukov made a fresh effort towards the reunification of his party, which was the symbol of Bulgaria's transition to democracy in the 1990s, and which split up into several factions after it lost the 2001 parliamentary elections.
The news for the rejoining of the Union of Free Democrats, founded by former Sofia mayor Stefan Sofiyanski, and of the "Radicals" Union, led by Evgenii Bakurdzhiev, was announced on Thursday after the religious and secular remembrance of the 11th anniversary of the tumultuous civil protests of January, 1997.
The centre-right GERB party of Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov has been tipped to win a landslide victory in the next general elections, due in 2009. The party is currently not represented in parliament, but scored nationwide gains in the October local vote and set off on a course to topple the ruling three-way coalition.
The allegiance between the two parties, first made public at the end of last year, has been strengthened by the urgent need for snap polls in the wake of the drug trafficking scandal that rocked the Interior last week, it emerged on Friday when the leaders of the two parties met.
Boyko Borisov and Plamen Yurukov announced that their parties will run solo in the next general elections, but are more than willing to form a government together.
"The Union of Democratic Forces will be the first party that GERB will invite for coalition partners," Borissov told reporters.
Borissov, archenemy of the ruling coalition, underlined that the currently ruling Socialist Party and their junior partners, the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, are ruled out as potential coalition partners.
The meeting came just a day after UDF leader Plamen Yurukov made a fresh effort towards the reunification of his party, which was the symbol of Bulgaria's transition to democracy in the 1990s, and which split up into several factions after it lost the 2001 parliamentary elections.
The news for the rejoining of the Union of Free Democrats, founded by former Sofia mayor Stefan Sofiyanski, and of the "Radicals" Union, led by Evgenii Bakurdzhiev, was announced on Thursday after the religious and secular remembrance of the 11th anniversary of the tumultuous civil protests of January, 1997.
The centre-right GERB party of Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov has been tipped to win a landslide victory in the next general elections, due in 2009. The party is currently not represented in parliament, but scored nationwide gains in the October local vote and set off on a course to topple the ruling three-way coalition.
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