Bulgarian Left-Winger Blames Rulers for Canceled No-Confidence Vote

Bulgaria's ruling centrist-right GERB has deliberately ruined the planned no-confidence vote against it by forcing MPs from the far-right Ataka to withdraw their signatures from the motion, left-wing leader Sergey Stanishev has claimed.

"There has obviously been pressure on the Ataka MPs," Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Sergey Stanishev said on Thursday, as cited by dnevnik.bg.

The no-confidence motion was submitted by Ataka and left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party over what the two parties perceive as GERB's failed energy policy. At the end of March, the GERB government decided to scrap the Belene Nuclear Power Plant, a project backed by the two aforementioned parties.

On Thursday, however, Ataka decided to withdraw its signatures from the no-confidence motion. Thus, only 40 MPs, 39 lawmakers from BSP and one independent. Georgi Terziyski. The bare minimum for a no-confidence motion is 48 signatures (20% of all MPs), according to the Bulgarian constitution.

Stanishev declared that an initiative committee will be created next week that will try to organize a referendum on Belene's fate.

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