This week brought new dramatic developments for the right-wing Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and their coalition partners in Parliament, the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union - People's Union (BAPU-PU) and the Democratic Party (DP). The three parties form the Parliamentary group of the United Democratic Forces (UtDF).

According to the UDF spokesperson Nikolai Mladenov, however, this did not mean that the right-wing coalition in Parliament was splitting.

After last week the former finance minister Muravei Radev and the UDF MP Dimitar Abadjiev urged the UDF leader Nadezhda Mihailova to resign, at this week's meeting of the National Council of UDF she managed to keep her position.

The deputy leader of UDF, Ekaterina Mihailova, however, resigned and demanded the convocation of an extraordinary national conference of UDF.

After nearly nine hours of discussions earlier this week, the National Council of UDF decided to split off UtDF in Parliament and to form a new Parliamentary group. The council rejected the demand of Ekaterina Mihailova by an open vote of 67 to 47 votes.

The UDF MP Yordan Bakalov was elected a deputy leader of the party to replace Plamen Oresharski who resigned from the UDF after his unsuccessful candidacy for mayor of Sofia in last year's municipal elections last year.

In spite of the expectations, however, at this week's meeting the national council did not discuss the expelling of Abadjiev from the party.

The deputy leader of UDF Vladimir Kissyov said that is was likely that the punishment might be discussed at a regular meeting of the National Executive Council but that was not the solution to the problem. "The UDF is better off united instead of splitting, which is always painful," Kissyov said.

"I think that today's meeting, which was loaded with dramatism and expectations on part of the public, was very constructive and politically wise in spite of the differences," said Nadezhda Mihailova after the end of the meeting, which took place under unprecedented security measures. "Still I say that whenever there are serious transformations in a party it is natural to have many points of view."

Also after the meeting the deputy chairman of the National Executive Council Emanuil Yordanov said that an extraordinary national conference wouldn't have solved the problems of UDF. "UDF has problems but there is hardly any party in Bulgaria which does not have problems," Yordanov said.

After the meeting Ekaterina Mihailova said she resigned from her leadership position in UDF because for her was more important that the party was strong instead of blindly following one leader or another.

According to her, there was a very serious organizational, ideological and leadership crisis. She said that this crisis would not allow UDF to stand up against the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).