On November 27, at the personal insistence of National Movement for Stability and Progress (NDSV) leader Simeon Saxe-Coburg, five Members of Parliament from the 'rebel' wing were expelled from the party and its parliamentary group, mediapool.bg said. This happened at a meeting of the Political Council and the Members of Parliament of NDSV.

The expelled MPs were Plamen Panayotov, Borislav Ralchev, Borislav Velikov, Vladimir Donchev and Atanas Shterev, who handed in his resignation on his own initiative.

The NDSV purge was only a matter of time, after part of Saxe-Coburg's Members of Parliament openly challenged the legitimacy of the June extraordinary party congress, whose decisions were still not registered in court because of accusations of fraud. Complaints were filed with the court by party members, but during the summer Saxe-Coburg demanded that Plamen Panayotov, Borislav Velikov and Borislav Ralchev, who he thought had organised the protest, would ensure their withdrawal.

On November 27, the NDSV leader accused the three of not meeting his demand and of obstructing the court registration of the new party management. Therefore they had to be expelled, mediapool.bg said.

Former NDSV secretary Vladimir Donchev was accused of poor work and of not attracting new members.

Asked by Mediapool if Saxe-Coburg intended to punish ministers Daniel Vulchev and Nikolai Vassilev, who also rebelled, leader of NDSV's parliamentary group Plamen Mollov said that he could not foresee any future decisions of the party management.

According to sources from the ruling tripartite coalition, Saxe-Coburg sounded out with Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev the withdrawal of his ministers from the cabinet. Although Stanishev worked well with them, it was not impossible to replace them in December or the beginning of 2008, when he was expected to propose broader changes in Government, mediapool.bg said.

At a press conference, Plamen Mollov said the five Members of Parliament had been expelled because of political activities which did not fit NDSV's  prestige and name. According to NDSV spokesman Stanimir Ilchev the expelling of the five was part of measures to improve the party's conditions.

Statements made by the five dissidents were not in line with party politics and they created an alternative political line within NDSV's parliamentary group. Ilchev gave as an example views of the five that the draft budget for 2008 did not stand for liberal values and ideas.

Apart from this, the five thought that work should be done to 'dismantle' the coalition and tp provoke ahead-of-term elections, Ilchev said.

Coming out of the party's head office, Atanas Shterev admitted that Saxe-Coburg had asked him to leave NDSV's parliamentary group, mediapool.bg reported.

“He said I was obviously feeling unsatisfied with NDSV and asked me to resign from the parliamentary group and from the party. I answered him that this was really so,” Shterev, one of the most outspoken inter-party critics of NDSV, said.

On November 27, three deputy chairpersons of NDSV were elected with a full majority. They were Marina Dikova, Milen Velchev and Iliya Lingorski. Ilcho Douganov was elected organisation secretary of the party, mediapool.bg said.