The number of members of the Parliament (MPs) who left the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NDSV) over the past couple of days has reached 13 with the resignation of Boiko Boev, reported by the NDSV headquarters.

On November 27 2007, party management decided to expel four MPs from the NDSV parliamentary group and from the party. Seven other MPs left the party voluntarily afterwards.

Focus news agency quoted Boev as saying that his resignation was the logic course of events. The new management of NDSV parliamentary group declared that it wanted to achieve consolidation by expelling MPs, but Boev was against the policy. This policy of the management made Boev resign.

Boev said that NDSV was needed in the ruling coalition for Bulgaria’s EU accession, but probably the party should have left the coalition when this was achieved.

Boev said that he was ready to become part of a new parliamentary group, formed by the former NDSV MPs.

Atanas Shterev, one of the ousted MPs, said that former NDSV MPs were planning to form a new parliamentary group by the end of the week. The MPs would have to decide their platform, goals and alleys.

Shterev was sure that after Boev’s resignation, other MPs would also leave the party. Resignation was a personal decision and NDSV MPs who had left, did not pressure their former colleagues to resign, he said.

The main question the former NDSV MPs had to decide was whether they would support the ruling parties or the opposition. The content of Budget 2008 when it would be approved would be decisive for the new parliamentary group’s orientation, he said.