site.btaSocialist MEPs Urge BSP not to Back GERB Cabinet

Bulgarian MEPs have put out a petition to the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) urging it against "falling in the trap" of backing a government of GERB-UDF.  "With 9% voter support, you cannot be the spare tyre of a Right-wing government," the former leader of BSP and the Party of European Socialist, Sergei Stanishev, told reporters here Friday. He was speaking on the sidelines of a forum on progressive Left policies with the participation of MEPs, state officials, politicians and grassroot Socialists.

According to Stanishev, the BSP identity in the past 12-15 years was based on opposing the GERB model. "How could you embrace it now? How are we going to look voters in the eye during the local elections [this autumn] and after that?"

MEP Peter Vitanov said that some in the BSP leadership are willing to back a GERB government but the majority of party members would oppose that.

He said that he had heard that BSP is ready to "sell itself in exchange for 2-3 ministerial seats".