President Georgi Purvanov and Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov should not have bothered the public with their conflict, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov told private national Nova Televisia's morning show Na Kafe on March 3 2010.

This was Borissov's first comment on the conflict between Purvanov and Dyankov, which led to Purvanov asking for Dyankov's resignation.

There was no need for the two (Purvanov and Dyankov) to bother the public with their dispute, Borissov said.

On March 2 2010, Purvanov's office issued a statement calling on Dyankov to either prove comments he made regarding alleged overseas assets held by Purvanov, supposedly worth millions of leva, or resign.

The statement from the presidency was an official reaction to Dyankov's remarks the previous evening on Nova Televisia's Ivan and Andrei chat show.

When asked whether he believed speculation that Purvanov owned luxury properties in the US, Dubai and Europe, and was therefore a young billionaire, Dyankov replied: "he (Purvanov) is definitely not young".

It is unclear whether it was this statement that enraged the presidency. The statement from the president's office, however, said that "in respect of inferences about properties and funds of the president abroad, which were made on a certain TV talk show on March 1, and which harm the head of state's image, the president insists that Dyankov either clarifies his position, and substantiates his comments, or resigns".

Such "jokes" were extremely inappropriate given news about the state of the Budget, Purvanov's office said.

A few hours later, the Finance Ministry issued a statement denying that Dyankov had made any comments about Purvanov's assets and said that Purvanov probably had been misled about Dyankov's words.

Sergei Stanishev, leader of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (a post held by Purvanov before becoming President in January 2002), said that Dyankov should resign.

Stanishev was angered by Dyankov's statement, on the same show, that former social minister Emilia Maslarova, also a BSP MP, belonged in jail. Maslarova and four others were recently charged with the alleged embezzlement of 11 million leva during her term in office.

"In any modern society a minister who makes such comments and hands out sentences would have been gone already, but not in Bulgaria," Stanishev said.

Responding to Stanishev, Borissov said that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Commission all had praised Bulgaria's financial policy.