There will be a vote based on an overall policy, there will be no vote not based on an overall Government policy, was the play staged last week by the now opposition GERB party, confirming once again its reputation of inconsistent political entity.
The current cabinet had to be attacked in Parliament for its overall policy, or at least this was the request of GERB leader Boyko Borissov on Tuesday (17 September). As it had happened before, however, his opinion changed and the reasons for that were urgently redrafted. Ultimately, on Thursday (September 19th) in Parliament was submitted the first request for a no-confidence motion against the Cabinet because of the virtually non-functioning Ministry of Investment Planning. GERB announced intention to cause frequent no-confidence procedures for individual policies.
We see that in its first four months this policy (Editor’s note: for investment planning) has had no specifics, details, priorities, measures and vision. The newly created Ministry does not work, has no administration and has not presented its activity report, because no such activity exists. This ministry and the defunct policy creates havoc and a total stupor for the entire state administration, said regional minister Lilyana Pavlova pointing out some of the reasons for the move.
Without unnecessarily exacerbating the details, Borissov initially announced that the vote would be because of the lies and failure of the government in all spheres. Later on, Tsvetan Tsvetanov explained that if the move was based only on one policy, people might think that the opposition likes some of the other policies. Former interior minister even argued, analytically, that several successive votes on different reasons may devalue the procedure as such. GERB were heavily criticized by analysts and opposition politicians that they had cemented the positions of the current government at least until spring, because six months after the vote, they would not be entitled to initiate another motion. And a little later, after on Wednesday Liliana Pavlova and Vladislav Goranov explained extensively in the morning television blocks why the grounds have to be the overall policy, Borissov mad a U-turn.
In his explanation, that the motives are to change, to take into account the views of other opposition leaders, such as Radan Kanev, Meglena Kuneva and the Facebook-based group of citizens Protest Network the former prime minister adopted the sectoral non-confidence vote. Demonstrating not entirely satisfying knowledge of the parliamentary rules, he informed the public, that the procedure would still be connected to the overall policy but divided into parts. Knife-Like, Flower-Like, Like Nothing At All In The World, as the title of a great now deceased writer read.
Such agility GERB demonstrated back at the end of July. Then, when discussing the budget update in the Parliamentary committee, they proposed as a lesser evil their own version on how to increase the budget revenue by 150 million levs. This happened, although they had previously spoken firmly against any budget update.
The GERB’s playing with the rightist Reformist Bloc with relation to the non-confidence motion is interesting, as there is a risk the GERB’s bear hug to alienate a significant part of the electorate that would support the alliance of the seven small parties. For quite some time Borissov has been looking for topics on which to be able to partner with them and is trying to build bridges. I have no shame to try and comply with the people for whom I am convinced that the people will eventually force us to comply with and learn how to understand each other, if we don’t now, said Borissov during the week.
On September 4, the Protest network GERB and the Reformist Bloc staged a welcoming of MPs in front of the Parliament, which, however, quickly became a politically backed event and disillusioned some of the demonstrators who were not politically attached to any of the parties. Pressed by suspicions concerning a collusion with the party of Borissov, the Reform Bloc differentiated from it and rejected the possibility of a joint election coalition. But none of them has said clearly that they rule out a coalition after the election.
The non-confidence motion has the potential to attract the public attention on the problems of the country governance, but it also depends on the ability of the opposition to provide convincing arguments. Of course, there’s no way the opposition can gather 121 votes for it to be successful, even in case of help from the Ataka party, which its leader Violen Siderov has already turned down as an option.
Previous government survived four no-confidence votes. The first was due to its failure in healthcare sector, the second – for its anti-crisis measures, the third – for domestic policy, and the last one – for justice and internal affairs. There was another attempt for a fifth motion in April 2012 due to the suspension of NPP Belene, but it failed because the socialists and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms were relying on signatures of the Ataka MPs, but nationalists withdrew from the initiative.
The BANKER
