June 22 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria’s six-month-old reformist coalition government led by prime minister Kiril Petkov lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, the tally of the vote showed.
The no-confidence motion passed with the support of 123 MPs out of 239 voting, according to the tally. It needed 121 votes in the 240-seat National Assembly to pass.
The motion was submitted by former prime minister Boyko Borissov's GERB party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and nationalist Revival party. MPs from former junior government coalition partner There Is Such a People (TISP) which left the coalition last week also supported the motion.
GERB filed the motion of no confidence last week, citing perceived failures in the economic and financial policy of the government. There Is Such a People (TISP) earlier withdrew all of its four ministers from the government.
Petkov was keen to gain the support of enough MPs for the government to survive so as to keep judicial reform on track, rejig the anti-corruption commission and win approval for a proposed budget revision bill, which includes a 2 billion levs ($1.1 billion/1 billion euro) package to alleviate economic challenges made worse by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The three political formations participating in the government - We Continue the Change, led by Petkov, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and the anti-status quo, pro-reform Democratic Bulgaria coalition - have a total of 109 MPs.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)