National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) has sown discord in Bulgaria's ruling coalition after the parliamentary debate on the fifth vote of no-confidence in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev on April 10.

NMSP has decided to abstain during the vote, scheduled for late afternoon on April 11, the party's deputy parliamentary floor leader Ognyan Gerdjikov told reporters after the debate, as quoted by mediapool.bg.

In the ruling coalition, the party has taken the most critical stance towards Interior Minister Roumen Petkov, who is at the centre of the ongoing public row after senior police officials have been accused of ties to controversial businessmen or outright corruption.

The coalition agreed on April 9 against sacking Petkov and NMSP is not eager to break ranks, with polls showing the party was unlikely to gather enough votes to enter the next Parliament.

Rather than protect national interests and Bulgarian citizens, the Interior Ministry has turned into the scene of a power struggle that reflects a similar conflict in organised crime circles, NMSP floor leader Plamen Mollov said during the debate.

The motion of no confidence was filed om the grounds of "the Government's ties with organised crime”. Should NMSP, which has 35 members of Parliament (MPs), vote in its entirety in favour of the motion, it would bring down the Cabinet with less than 15 months left before the next scheduled parliamentary polls.

Its position was not final, however, as the party awaits the return of its leader, Simeon Saxe-Cobourg, one unnamed MP told mediapool.bg. Saxe-Cobourg missed both the council of the ruling coalition and the debate, choosing instead to honour a previous commitment to address the Portuguese parliament.