The resignation of Interior Minister Roumen Petkov after revelations that he met with businessmen while they were investigated by law enforcement looked certain last week, but it is no longer the case, Dnevnik daily reported on April 1 2008.

With leaders of the three parties in the ruling coalition scheduled to meet on April 1 to decide his fate, Petkov made a surprise visit to Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev's office a day earlier. The two Socialist politicians spent an hour behind closed doors, prompting speculation that Petkov tendered his resignation, something he strongly denied after the meeting.

High-ranking officials in the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and ethnic Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), who were confident before the weekend that only Petkov's resignation would save the Cabinet from falling, changed their tune to rule out such drastic measures, Dnevnik said.

Petkov's dismissal would "hardly result in an improvement", the daily quoted one top Socialist as saying.

The other party in the ruling coalition, the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP), said off the record that they were still in favour of Petkov's removal. Otherwise, snap polls were looking increasingly likely, which the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov would handily win. Borissov would then have to thank Stanishev with a bottle of the oldest whiskey he can find, Dnevnik quoted NMSP politicians as saying.

Dnevnik's NMSP sources would not exclude the possibility that Petkov had compromising documents, which would damage the image of the party and its politicians if they were made public.

For now, the resolution of the row would be most likely postponed, with Stanishev leaving Sofia on April 2 to take part in Nato's three-day summit in Bucharest. From there, he would fly straight to London for a meeting of the Party of European Socialists, returning to Sofia only on April 6.

Roumen Ovcharov, who along with Petkov are seen as the spearheads of powerful lobbies within the party, told Dnevnik he did not expect anything to happen over the next several days. Ovcharov himself lost the economy and energy ministry portfolio last year in a protracted corruption row.