site.btaMovement for Rights and Freedoms Vows to Be Firm Opposition to Government Depending on Patriotic Front

Movement for Rights and Freedoms Vows to Be Firm Opposition to Government Depending on Patriotic Front

Sofia, November 4 (BTA) - The Movement for Rights and Freedoms
(MRF) will be a firm opposition to a government which depends on
the nationalist Patriotic Front, MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan told
the press after consultations with President Rosen Plevneliev.

The President met with the MRF as part of his consultations with
the parliamentary forces before giving a mandate for cabinet
formation. The MRF was represented at the talks by floor leader
Lyutvi Mestan and his deputies Stanislav Anastassov, Tuncher
Kurdjaliev and Ferihan Ahmedova.

The consultations focused on urgent tasks and reforms and on the
new Parliament's priorities.

Mestan said that at the talks with the President they voiced
their strong objections to the government format which has been
discussed in the recent days and which is based on a two-party
government of GERB and the Reformist Bloc with parliamentary
support from two more formations: the PF and ABV.

"We told the President that it is wrong to call this a two-party
minority government for this is essentially a four-party
parliamentary majority," said Mestan. "This arithmetic sum of
GERB, the RB, the PF and ABV is not just unprecedented : it is
an outright anti-European and anti-NATO alliance, which MRF
cannot support."

Mestan warned that if this format becomes a reality, Bulgaria
puts to risk its civilizational choice of being a Euro-Atlantic
country. "There is no way for the attempt to present the PF as a
modern patriotic formation or something different from Ataka,
to succeed," the MRF leader added.

He reiterated his party's position that if GERB put forward a
government formula "with a clear civilizational profile, be it
of one or two parties, with the Reformist Bloc, and try to
ensure sector-specific ad hoc majority in Parliament", then MRF
would, without any conditions for participation in the
government, support all policies which serve the national
interests.

Mestan lashed out at the manner of negotiating the formation of
the future government by GERB. Recalling that one of the main
criticisms against the three-party coalition government of
2005-2009 was that the ministerial positions were proportionally
distributed among the three partners, he said: "Why the
proportional distribution [of ministerial offices] is culpable
in one case and the only right decision in another?".