Bulgarian PM Wishes Success to Split Right Wing

The former leaders of the now-former right-wing Blue Coalition, Martin Dimitrov (r), UDF, and Ivan Kostov (l), DSB. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, wished success to the two major parties in the now former right-wing Blue Coalition, after news reports about the latter's breakup.

"Both the Union of Democratic Forces, UDF, and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, DSB, are our political partners in the European right wing and in the European People's Party, EPP, and I wish them success," Borisov told the media Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday, UDF's National Council gathered in the city of Plovdiv to decide on whether it would take part in the 2013 general elections on its own. 49 members of UDF's National Council voted for leaving the Blue Coalition and 34 were against.

UDF leader, Martin Dimitrov, announced officially he is resigning as he has promised, after it emerged that the Blue Coalition fell apart.

Political experts and analysts believe this is the end of UDF. They say that some of its members will gravitate to Borisov's ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, to the newly-founded party "Bulgaria for Citizens" of the former European Commissioner and former Presidential runner Meglena Kuneva, to the nearly-extinct party of former Tsar and PM, Simeon Saxe-Coburg – National Movement for Stability and Prosperity, NMSP, or, as last resort – to DSB, which is also on the brink of extinction.

"It is GERB's principle to not comment on internal issues and decisions of other parties," Borisov further said.

In the last weeks, working teams of both UDF and DSB negotiated in depth the coalition agreement and the decision to dissolve the Blue Coalition came as somewhat a surprise to many.

Under the UDF party code, a new leader must now be elected.

The Blue Coalition was established in the eve of the general elections in 2009 and has been marred by troubles and discord ever since. It currently has 14 Members of the Parliament after Ventsislav Varbanov left to become independent.

The Coalition registered in 2009 for the European Parliament Elections without the UDF being officially listed as a party. The former UDF leader, Plamen Yurukov, who strongly opposed a coalition with the DSB leader, Ivan Kostov, registered with the Central Elections Commission, CEK, an UDF duplicate. UDF was officially listed as a coalition partner of DSB in time for the general elections.

DSB has said it is prepared to participate in the elections on its own. However, its representatives were in favor of keeping the Coalition alive.

Recent polls have suggested that neither of the two parties would be capable of gathering 4% of all votes in the 2013 election, the bare minimum required for entering the country's Parliament.

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