Bulgaria’s main opposition party, the Socialist Party (BSP) is quickly starting preparations for an early election as the ruling coalition has entered yet another crisis due to evolving conflicts within the junior partner and highly provocative statements from one of its leaders, BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said on October 23.

Her statement followed the refusal of the far-right United Patriots – the junior coalition partner of ruling Gerb – to ask for the resignation of one of its leaders, Valeri Simeonov, from the post of deputy prime minister. Simeonov is under heavy pressure from the public to resign over offensive comments he made about mothers of disabled children. 

Protests erupted in several Bulgarian cities demanding Simeonov’s resignation after he called mothers campaigning for better treatment of their disabled children “a group of shrill women who speculated with their children, manipulated society, taking out in the streets those allegedly ill children in hot weather and rain”.

However, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said he cannot ask for Simeonov’s resignation as this would lead to the government’s collapse, adding that he can only ask his deputy to resign if this has been proposed by the United Patriots. Otherwise he risks breaching the coalition agreement.

“Over the years, Boyko Borissov and I have been serious political opponents. I have to admit that during that time he was looking like a man who is controlling the situation, who has various mechanisms to take control of various crises. Now for the first time he seems to me powerless and helpless as prime minister to resolve the problem,” Ninova said as quoted in a statement on the BSP’s website.

The United Patriots is a coalition between three far-right parties, the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB), the Bulgarian National Movement (VMRO) and Ataka. The coalition is leaded by the heads of the three parties – Simeonov of the NFSB, Krassimir Karakachanov of VMRO and Volen Siderov of Ataka.

On October 23, Karakachanov said he will not seek Simeonov’s resignation as this would bring to power the ethnic-Turk Movement for Rights and Freedom (DPS) or the populist Volya party led by controversial businessman Vesselin Mareshki. Although the two parties are formally in opposition, informally they are supporting Borissov and could easily replace the United Patriots in government.

“I will not ask for his resignation because I realise what would follow,” Karakachanov said in an interview with bTV.

Simeonov made the controversial comment following a meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation, which backed most sections of a new law for disabled people. The law has since been adopted by government, and is expected to ease the situation of disabled people and their relatives.

Previously, mothers of disabled children had been protesting for months, seeking fundamental reforms to Bulgaria’s system of assistance for people with disabilities.

Simeonov claimed that the mothers used their children to achieve “purely materialistic goals” and that the law was “conceived in sin”.

Unlike Borissov and Karakachanov, Siderov immediately demanded Simeonov’s resignation. However, his move was not surprising as the two have been locked in conflict for months, which recently increased significantly after Siderov said he wants to head the United Patriots' candidate list in the May 2019 European Parliament elections and Simeonov refused. 

Karakachanov told bTV that the United Patriots are torn by internal conflicts and that he will no longer try to calm down his coalition partners.

“For the past six months our coalition – the United Patriots – has been torn by internal conflicts and this is not normal. I have exhausted my capabilities for reconciliation or playing a ‘blue helmet’. We are wasting time dealing with what someone has said and how he is feeling about the other,” Karakachanov said.

Last month, he went to a meeting of the coalition partners wearing a blue helmet in a humorous attempt to persuade his partners to bury the hatchet and restore dialogue.

Simeonov has sparked public anger many times before with his highly controversial statements. He was previously found guilty of hate speech against Roma people in the country and provoked outrage with an open letter full of racist attacks against Ska Keller, a German MEP and the president of the Greens group in the European Parliament.