GERB tables second no-confidence motion in Bulgarian Socialist Party government
Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB opposition party has tabled its second motion of no confidence in the Bulgarian Socialist Party government, this time on the grounds of what GERB calls the government’s failed policy on regional development and infrastructure.
A previous motion of no confidence, on the non-functioning of the investment planning ministry announced by the BSP government after it took office in May 2013, was defeated after days of drama in which the National Assembly struggled to maintain a quorum to proceed with its sittings.
Of the 240 seats in the National Assembly, the BSP and its allies the Movement for Rights and Freedoms hold half, meaning that without the somewhat improbable scenario of support from Ataka, GERB cannot win the motion.
Volen Siderov’s Ataka ultra-nationalists have been seen in a series of public opinion polls by various agencies as highly unlikely to return to Parliament in the event of fresh elections.
GERB MP Lilyana Pavlova, who was regional development minister from late 2011 until the end of the GERB government in March 2013, said that the motion was based on the overall sense of failure in regional development and infrastructure policy. None of the policies in the sector were seeing progress and none was being implemented properly, Pavlova said.
BSP leader Sergei Stanishev said that the grounds for the new motion of no confidence were “ridiculous” while MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan said, “we will take every motion of no confidence seriously, no matter how unserious its motives are”.
GERB seemed determined to make no-confidence motions part of Parliament’s everyday life, Mestan said.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
