Bulgarian Right-Wing Leader Not Bothered by Calls to Resign

Emil Kabaivanov, the embattled leader of Bulgarian right-wing party Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), has declared that he is not worried by any potential calls for him to resign.

On Monday, lawmaker Dimo Gyaurov urged Kabaivanov and all members of the party's governing body to resign over their involvement in the country's latest constitutional court scandal.

Gyaurov said that Kabaivanov allowed the party to be used by the ruling centrist-right GERB as a cover-up of its own failure to elect a constitutional judge.

Last week, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov unexpectedly invited UDF to nominate a replacement for GERB's failed constitutional judge nominee on grounds the formation was the oldest right-wing party in Bulgaria and is a member of the European People's Party, EPP, similarly to GERB.

The move was interpreted as an attempt from the PM to attract the allegiance of the Union and create further divisions in the feeble Blue Coalition between the UDF and DSB.

UDF's governing body agreed and nominated former President Petar Stoyanov (1997-2001) for constitutional judge. However, UDF's MPs opposed the nomination, saying the move would only help the ruling party to wipe-off its own shame after the failed nomination of judge Veneta Markovska.

Stoyanov declined the nomination.

On Monday, Dimo Gyaurov and two other unruly MPs, including former UDF leader Martin Dimitrov, were expelled from the right-wing party.

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