Bulgaria Ethnic Turks to Back No-Confidence Vote against Govt

"I believe that Bulgarian citizens will break the habit of voting emotionally and make an informed choice this time," Mestan said. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

The ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) has made it clear they will support the looming no-confidence motion, which the opposition plans to table against the center-right government of Boyko Borisov.

"We will back a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Borisov's government because it has come to deserve this. The Bulgarian government has placed Bulgaria on EU's second track, if we use the two-track Europe concept," Lyutvi Mestan, deputy head of the ethnic Turkish political formation, said in the morning broadcast of the state television channel BNT.

He underscored GERB's failure to come up with a political vision for a country that is a member of the EU.

According to Mestan, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Education and former Chairman of the same committee in the previous parliament, the Bulgarian government has allocated 1.5% of the budget on science and education, which is "scandalous especially with a view of the Lisbon strategy and the Europe 2020 strategy."

The DPS MP sided with the forecast that GERB does not stand much chance of winning the presidential vote, citing the failure of its cabinet.

Mestan refuted as "preposterous" the claim of an emerging coalition in Parliament between ruling center-right party GERB, nationalist Ataka and DPS.

"We consider the vote for a Head of State particularly important. We believe that the male/female discussion regarding the presidential figure is ridiculous," he declared and added:

"DPS is a too solid formation to be bothered with questions about backing another party's presidential candidate".

He expressed hopes that the discussion about Bulgaria's next Head of State would grow into a debate on the country's development until 2020, or even in a longer perspective.

"I believe that Bulgarian citizens will break the habit of voting emotionally and make an informed choice this time," Mestan concluded.

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