site.bta MRF Says Formula of Incumbent Coalition Generates Instability

MRF Says Formula of Incumbent Coalition Generates Instability


Sofia, March 5 (BTA) - The Movement for Rights and Freedoms
(MRF) is extremely reserved that the present government will be
one of reforms because its very formula generates instability
and an inability to achieve agreement in the ruling coalition
regarding the direction and content of the reforms, MRF leader
Lyutvi Mestan said. He was speaking after Thursday's meeting of
representatives of his party's parliamentary group with
President Rosen Plevneliev as part of the ongoing month of
political consultations.

In Mestan's words, there is no way in which agreement about the
pension reform could be reached within the government coalition.
 He recalled that even before the cabinet was formed, the MRF
had warned that if the parties in it do not come to an agreement
 on pension reform, on fiscal and tax policy, if they are
incapable of devising a common position on the foreign policy
challenges, then they actually "have not agreed on anything".

The sides also commented and discussed the challenges to
Bulgaria's national security and their domestic political
dimensions. Speaking about the crisis in Ukraine, Mestan said
that Bulgaria should act as a real member of the EU and NATO,
not as a formal one. He also expressed the desire to see whether
 this definitive thesis of the MRF is the one upheld by all
parties supporting Borissov's second cabinet. As regards the
challenges related to the Islamic State, the MRF said that with
their liberal, national, European and worldly profile they are a
 much more reliable civilizational barrier against various
dangerous radical ideas in Bulgarian society than the wire fence
 [which was erected on a 30-kilometre section of the
Bulgarian-Turkish border to stop illegal immigrants]. 

The MRF also thinks reforms in education should start from the
pre-school stage. The problem of early school dropouts among
Roma children can be solved only with a national programme for
building kindergartens in the areas with a prevalent Roma
population, Mestan said.

Taking a question about the President's initiative to hold a
referendum on the change of election rules, the MRF leader
responded that everyone should be concerned that voter turnout
is dropping, that this discredits representation, but his party
considers  the political forces as the main culprit for such
developments. The problem should be resolved not by punishing
voters or by turning a right into an obligation, but by
reforming the parties. You cannot pose the issue of compulsory
voting on the one hand and close your eyes to openly
discriminatory texts, even in the effective Election Code, which
 deny Bulgarians the right to vote, the MRF leader said. The MRF
 expects the President to exercise his right to veto such
discriminatory texts where the party's own resources are not
sufficient to refer such cases to the Constitutional
Court.