Bulgaria United Right Wing Aims High in Vote 09

Bulgaria's two biggest right-wing parties, DSB and UDF, which have just made a major step towards a much needed unity, announced ambitious targets for the upcoming general and European Parliament elections in the summer.

"We have set a number of long-term goals and assign top priority to making Bulgaria a modern country," Ekaterina Mihaylova, deputy chairman of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), said on Wednesday, a day after the party gave the green light to a broad right-wing pre-election coalition with the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF).

According to her between 20 and 40 MP hopefuls on the joint ballots of UDF and DSB are likely to make their way to the country's 240-seat unicameral parliament.

She did not rule out forming a ruling coalition with GERB, the popular right-wing party of Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov, despite the history of bad blood between the leaders of the parties.

A day earlier the National Council of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) voted yes to the establishment of a pre-election coalition with the right hard-liners from the party of former Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB). In a separate development, DSB leadership cleared the way for party head Ivan Kostov to sign a pre-election agreement with UDF.

The decision represents a major step towards pooling the forces of the right-wing parties and salvaging their only chance for a decent performance at the general and MEP elections in the summer.

The performance of the two rightist parties in Bulgaria at elections has been going from bad to worse since 2001. They have presently no members of the European Parliament as they failed to pass the 5% threshold in Bulgaria's EP elections in the spring of 2007.

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