site.btaBSP for Bulgaria Opens Talks on Entering No Confidence Motion against Government

Sofia, November 2 (BTA) - Next week BSP for Bulgaria is starting talks with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and Volya on entering a no confidence motion against the third Boyko Borissov Cabinet, the Left parliamentary group Floor Leader and Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Chair Kornelia Ninova told journalists on Thursday.

"At a meeting of the parliamentary group, we decided to form a team and ask our colleagues of the MRF and Volya to do so, too, so that we can start official talks on the motion and on when to enter it," Ninova said. "We will propose that the subject of the motion is corruption. This does not limit us to a particular area of corruption - it could be healthcare, education, regional development, we have occasions everywhere," she noted.

Asked where the 121 votes needed for the motion to succeed will come from, the BSP leader explained that "the no-confidence motion is not just about numbers, it is about politics, a discussion of the problems and the decisions to be made. We are clear about the number of votes that each group has, but we believe that this subject is already exceedingly painful, considering the 10,000 million leva that are being stolen in the country."

Ninova noted that at the latest meeting of the Consultative Council on National Security with the President, one of the services reported statistics about 15,000 million leva that are stolen in Bulgaria annually.

In her words, the forthcoming Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council "cannot be an excuse for this corruption which is rampant in this country. We cannot keep silent about what is happening daily, including with the Minister of Health," Ninova said, referring to Nikolai Petrov who resigned as Minister of Health after an investigative TV report. The document revealed that, while he was director of the Military Medical Academy, the Academy awarded public procurement contracts to a company owned by a man cohabitating with his daughter. In her opinion, the motion will be a success if it is not limited to the debating chamber but prompts a public discussion outside Parliament. "We want to start the fight against corruption once and for all and in earnest rather than by covering up corruption through political simulation," she commented.