Government will not fall today, Stanishev says after vote of no confidence defeated
Bulgaria’s National Assembly voted on June 13 to reject a motion of no confidence by centre-right opposition GERB, in a 114 to 109 vote.
Addressing Parliament immediately after the vote, Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Sergei Stanishev said that the government was “not resigning today”, just as earlier BSP MP Maya Manolova had repeated to reporters that the government’s term would end only when an election date was decreed, and that – as the constitution determines – the cabinet would remain in place until a date two months before election day.
The motion of no confidence was the fifth tabled by GERB since the current government came to power in May 2013 on the basis of a mandate handed to the BSP, which had run second in parliamentary elections, after GERB – the largest party – had no allies with which to form a government. The latest motion was on the grounds of the government’s failings in fiscal policy.
Those voting in favour of the motion included 85 GERB MPs, 22 from ultra-nationalist party Ataka and two independents. The 114 against were made up of 79 from the BSP, 34 from its ruling axis partner the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and one independent MP.
Stanishev said that he had voted against the motion of no confidence because GERB had “no moral right” to table a motion of no confidence on the grounds of fiscal policy, given its own record. Stanishev said that the government had not fallen because there was no reason to support the no-confidence motion.
Ahead of the June 13 vote, GERB MP Tsveta Karayancheva said that in a year, the government had led Bulgaria into an institutional crisis and financial catastrophe.
As members of the cabinet entered the House for the vote, GERB MPs chanted “resignation”.
On June 17, a meeting of the Consultative Council of National Security, convened by head of state President Rossen Plevneliev, will discuss a number of pressing national issues, including a date for early parliamentary elections.
(Photo of Plamen Oresharski, with Sergei Stanishev at the rear to the left: bsp.bg)
