site.btaSocialists to Table Vote of No Confidence in Government over Healthcare Policy

106 POLITICS - SOCIALISTS - NATIONAL COUNCIL - DECISIONS

Socialists to Table
Vote of No Confidence
in Government over Healthcare Policy


Sofia, October 29 (BTA) - The National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Saturday decided that the BSP for Bulgaria Parliamentary Group will table a vote of no confidence in the Government over its healthcare policy, the party said in a press release.

BSP leader Kornelia Ninova explained that the National Council's decision was prompted by the worsening state of healthcare and the incumbent's intention to make reforms that will further burden financially every single Bulgarian citizen without improving the quality of healthcare services. In her words, this is not a healthcare reform but a healthcare genocide.

At Saturday's meeting of the BSP National Council, Ninova presented a political analysis according to which the last couple of months were marked by instability of the ruling coalition, with fights for power within the United Patriots, between the United Patriots and GERB, and between the lobbies within GERB. The ruling GERB party also caused a war between institutions by constantly attacking President Rumen Radev, Ninova said. She noted the increasing number of national and local protests, such as those of mothers of children with disabilities and those over problems with roads in Bulgaria.

The parliamentary majority is shaky, as evidenced by how two days in a row the incumbent failed to gather the necessary majority of 121 MPs to hold Parliament's regular sittings, and BSP for Bulgaria will not support the quorum just so that the Government of Boyko Borissov can continue leading the State towards the bottom, Ninova said.

She went on to say that Friday marked a completely new political situation, where the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) killed two birds - GERB and the United Patriots - with one stone. She was referring to Parliament's decision on Friday to adjourn a first-reading debate on amendments to the Local Self-Government and Local Administration Act on a motion by the MRF. "[On Thursday] we did not register for the quorum [for the National Assembly's regular sitting]. The MRF did the same. Faced with the risk of Parliament getting blocked, the Government falling and losing their warm seats and money, GERB surrendered to the MRF and met its condition to withdraw the draft amendments to the Local Self-Government Act [tabled by the Cabinet]. Yesterday [Friday] the condition was this bill. What will the next conditions be? With this move the MRF removed the United Patriots from the political map," Ninova said.

She recalled a United Patriots' statement from several months ago that if there is any threat to Bulgaria, it is the return of the MRF to power, and that the MRF cannot accept the fact that the United Patriots have removed it from power forever. According to Ninova, on Friday it became evident that not only have the United Patriots failed to remove the MRF from power, but they have also kneeled before the MRF in the name of remaining in power. In Ninova's words, the MRF controls GERB, and the United Patriots are happy about this because they are getting crumbs from the State's table.

"The incumbent have no principles, no ideologies, no governance programme. That is why we are called upon to be an alternative to the status quo. If we wanted power at any cost, now we would be negotiating for positions and money. We do not want this. We want a change in the model and that is what makes us different," the BSP leader told the National Council.

LI/DS