It was time for more technocrats to join the Cabinet, President Georgi Purvanov told reporters on April 14 2008, during his visit to Egypt. “I have never been in favour of the current ratio of the cabinet seats distributed among the three ruling parties,” Purvanov said. “I think the time has come when Bulgaria needs strong experts and statesmen, not just political players”,  as quoted by Bulgarian news Agency BTA.

Purvanov was referring to the upcoming radical changes announced by Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev on April 11, when the Cabinet survived its fifth no-confidence vote. Opposition filed it on the grounds of the Cabinet's alleged ties with organised crime.

The first radical change was the resignation of Interior Minister Roumen Petkov on April 13 2008. Petkov said he was accountable for his personnel choices that undermined the authority of the state and the ruling coalition.

Purvanov has often been referred as the man who helped the formation of the Cabinet in 2005, mediating talks between Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

In addition to BSP leader Sergei Stanishev becoming Prime Minister, the party got eight ministerial portfolios, NMSP received five, and MRF was handed three, according to the ratio agreed ratio during the talks.

After NMSP did not support the Cabinet on April 11 2008, its members of Parliament abstaining during the vote, Stanishev said that MRF had emerged as a reliable and predictable partner and that he would carry out radical changes in the Cabinet.

His words were interpreted by observers as Stanishev's answer to NMSP's lack of support and a hint that NMSP could lose one or two of its cabinet portfolios. NMSP's members of cabinet are Defence Minister Vesselin Bliznakov, Education Minister Daniel Vulchev, State Administration Minister Nikolai Vassielv, European Affairs Minister Gergana Grancharova and Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva.