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Tension within governing coalition pinned

Photo: BGNES

The more complicated a model is, the greater the fault opportunity is. In the case with Bulgaria, the governmental model had to serve the arithmetic of power and one main political goal – to isolate the Movement for Rights and Freedoms /MRF/. The Patriotic Front /PF/was a key element of that model, as it provided a sort of an alibi to PM Borissov in front of his electorate for the isolation of MRF. At the same time such negatively formulated political goal cannot give sustainable results and those appeared at once – at the level of political appointments. That was a good excuse of the PF to demonstrate its political emancipation because of its fans, who expect certain political actions. The conflicts were not due to governing policies, but regarding operators of power. In the course of three weeks the patriots threatened with withdrawal of their support for the government due to the appointments of Orhan Ismailov for deputy minister of defense and of Veselin Penev for a governor of the Sofia District. Both have been nominated by the Freedom and Dignity People’s Party, which is a part of the Reformist Bloc. The negativism of PF towards that party and its nominations is based on the fact that the latter had been established by ex-MRF members. The fact that the patriots gave a sign for shaking the quorum didn’t press the government, though. The parliamentary configuration allows the creation of a floating majority, supporting certain policies and legislative acts. Nevertheless, the society got the impression of instability in the governmental support. Bearing this in mind, on Friday the Reformist Bloc and the Patriotic Front shook hands. The patriots declared their ongoing support for the government, but wanted their representatives to be appointed as a deputy minister of defense and a deputy district governor of Sofia, but with no concrete names given. The candidacies will be proposed to the GERB governing majority. The end of the news in Turkish on BNT 1 national TV channel and their transfer to BNT 2 was a part of the deal. According to the reformists this doesn’t mean they have a deal with PF, but it is a sign of balance reached, i.e. each of the formations preserves its values, as the stability of the government is the goal.




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