How many no-confidence motions does it take to bring down a government?

The answer to this question in Bulgaria is: obviously, more than seven, if it can be done at all. No matter how many times in recent history the opposition has attempted a democratic ouster, not a single government has stepped down. On the contrary, no-confidence motions have always served to bring out the best in the ruling parties’ survival skills, as they have always managed to put aside any differences for the minutes it takes for MPs to vote.

Some might say that the number of no-confidence motions a government has managed to survive speaks for its ability to defend its policy, while others might claim that it speaks of the weakness and inability of the opposition to present a strong and convincing case for the government to go.

Whatever the reason, the current coalition Government of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev has proven to be the champion of all governments that have ruled Bulgaria since 1989. It has survived not one, not five, but seven no-confidence motions, the last being just a week ago on February 26. The most recent motion was on the basis of the Government’s overall policy.

Never in the country’s politics has a government been so consistently and methodically attacked by the opposition. The previous two governments, which each had a full four-year term in office (Ivan Kostov’s cabinet 1999-01 and Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s cabinet 2001-05) survived four and six no-confidence motions, respectively.

Simple arithmetic shows that in the four years Stanishev’s Cabinet will stay in power, it was asked to defend itself in Parliament every six and a half months. Now, with less than six months to go before the next parliamentary elections, it seems that Stanishev can relax, because the constitution says that a motion of no confidence cannot be tabled on the same grounds in the next six months.

The enemy
The opposition, mainly represented by a number of disunited and small right-wing parties threw everything they could at Stanishev: from natural disasters, health policy, education, organised crime, corruption, failure in absorbing EU funds to the government’s overall policy.

Many of these no-confidence motions coincided with interim reports published by the European Commission on Bulgaria’s progress or otherwise in fulfilling its obligations in implementing reforms. Such was the case with the sixth no-confidence motion filed in July 2008 on the grounds of the Government’s policy in absorbing and allocating EU funds.

Others were a result of massive public rallies and protests initiated by high school teachers and medics who complained about their poor social state.

The first no-confidence motion also had a social agenda. It was tabled in April 2006, the year after the Government was formed, and attacked its policy in coping with the consequences of the 2005 floods in which dozens of people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

Bulgarians have a record in bringing down a government after weeks of public protests, as was the case with the BSP cabinet led by Zhan Videnov (1995-97). But unlike in the winter of 1997, this time the opposition failed to rouse public discontent in a way that could threaten the Government’s stability.

Even the biggest party in opposition, the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), formed by Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov in 2006 and currently with just one MP, failed to do that. The only place Stanishev was left to fight his battle was Parliament where he had a solid ruling majority despite the split that happened in the end of 2007 when a small fraction quit one of the three ruling parties to form their own group in Parliament.

Another exception was the right-wing government of Filip Dimitrov who in 1992 became the only prime minister in Bulgaria’s history to request a motion of confience – which he lost.

All for one
When the Stanishev Cabinet was formed in 2005, it was a result of more than a month of negotiations. The election results were more than complicated.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party led by Stanishev won 33.98 per cent of the vote, followed by the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) of former prime minister and monarch Simeon Saxe-Coburg with 21.83 per cent, and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) of Ahmed Dogan with 10.07 per cent. The rest of the votes went to the three right-wing parties (21.21 per cent) and ultra-nationalist Ataka party (8.93 per cent).

In the 240-seat Parliament, the BSP got 82 seats, the NMSP 53 and the MRF 34. Ataka got 21 MPs while the right wing parties won 50 seats.

The NMSP Saxe-Coburg cabinet ruled the country in coalition with the MRF for four years and it was not a surprise that the two parties were willing to do so again after 2005. The surprise came after the BSP decided to join in as the party with the largest number of seats. Simple arithmetic showed that the BSP could not form a majority by itself.

The party wanted to have nothing to do with Ataka because of the ultra-nationalist slogans of Volen Siderov’s party. The same applied to the idea of forming a government with the "ideological enemy" in the shape of the right-wing parties. So the BSP decided to form a coalition with the NMSP and the MRF in the "sake of Bulgaria’s interest in becoming a EU member". The country had received an entry date for January 1 2007 and all eyes were set at achieving this goal at any cost.

The problem was that during the election campaign both the BSP and the NMSP had dismissed the idea of ruling together and their decision to do precisely that had to be explained to their supporters. The BSP chose the line of "the responsible thing a party must do for the sake of the country". The other line was "this is what people decided with their vote and we must respect it for the sake of maintaining the county’s stability ahead of EU membership".

Ironically, EU membership, which served as the three parties’ excuse for forming the Government, became the binding element of the Government, two years after Bulgaria joined the EU.

An even bigger irony is that the problems Bulgaria suffered as a result of the Bulgarian Government’s policy, which was severely criticised by the EU, became the reason given by Stanishev to stay in power every time a no-confidence motion was filed.

"Not at this moment", "Bulgaria needs stability above all", "We don’t need snap elections but work to overcome the problems", were the frequent responses by Stanishev and his colleagues when asked why the Government should continue its term despite losing public support and drawing severe criticism by the EU, especially in vital areas such as corruption and organised crime.

Grumpy but here
The party that showed the least desire to form the ruling coalition and which the opposition hoped to be its weakest link has been the NMSP. The party had been billed as a modern liberal party with a focus on business and investment, and its supporters found it difficult to accept the ruling coalition that Saxe-Coburg formed with Stanishev.
The NMSP’s excuse was that by joining the coalition, they were going to be the brake against the BSP’s ideas of unreasonable and lavish public spending that would have wasted the budget surplus accumulated by the Saxe-Coburg cabinet and in turn, threatened the country’s EU prospects.

The EU and its funds was another reason for the NMSP to join the Cabinet: EU funds meant more investments and hence more control over its spending by Bulgaria, so the party reasoned in 2005. What actually happened was the NMSP, often acting as the child that got the least attention from the other children in the class, threatened several times to quit the coalition.

In April 2008, the NMSP abstained from voting on the fifth no-confidence motion against the Government, which had been tabled on the grounds of the Government’s alleged ties with organised crime. Stanishev reacted sharply, saying that the country could go to elections earlier than envisaged in the constitution. Given the NMSP’s steadily decreasing support in opinion polls, which made it questionable whether snap elections would see the party returned to Parliament, it was no surprise that the NMSP decided to put aside its differences, as it had done in 2005.

The other thing the fifth no-confidence motion managed to produce was the biggest reshuffle of the Government, with five ministers being replaced, BSP hardliner interior minister Roumen Petkov among them.

As for the MRF, the party was more than satisfied with its status as the partner of both the BSP and the NMSP and having control over the Agriculture Ministry. It even decided not to ask for a change of the 8:5:3 ratio of Cabinet seats (based on the three parties’ 2005 elections results) after the NMSP started losing MPs. Currently the BSP has 80 MPs, the NMSP 35 and the MRF 34.

Stanishev’s record
1) April 19 2006
166 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of inefficient allocation of disaster
management funds

2) March 2 2007
163 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the crisis experienced in Bulgaria’s
    healthcare sector.

3) October 24 2007
160 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the state of Bulgaria’s education

4) February 22 2008
149 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the Government’s alleged
corruption

5) April 11 2008
117 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the Government’s alleged ties
with organised crime

6) July 30 2008
150 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the Government’s actions that
has led to the EC freezing about 800 million euro in EU funding to the country

7) February 26 2009
148 MPs reject a no-confidence motion on the grounds of the Government’s overall policy