Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Bulgaria appears to be headed for a fourth parliamentary election since the start of 2021 as outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s centrist We Continue the Change (PP) party failed to gather enough support in the parliament to maintain a working majority.
PP co-leader and PM-designate Assen Vassilev announced on Friday that his party would not be proposing a new government, after it had failed to win over the four lawmakers necessary to form an absolute majority in the parliament.
“We will return the mandate to form a government to the president unfulfilled. Unfortunately we did not succeed in finding 121 deputies to back our programme,” Vassilev told the media in a Friday briefing.
Petkov and his PP came to power six months ago, after the third consecutive general election last year, managing to assemble a wide coalition of parties on an anti-corruption platform. The Harvard-educated entrepreneur managed to win over the support of the socialist BSP bloc, the centre-right anti-graft party Democratic Bulgaria (DB), and the populist anti-establishment party There is Such a People (ITN), led by famous TV host and singer Slavi Trifonov.
Petkov’s government fell apart last month as Trifonov abruptly decided to withdraw his support for the ruling coalition, claiming the decision was reached over disagreements regarding the state budget revision, but also because Petkov was “betraying state interests” by allegedly planning to lift Sofia’s veto on North Macedonia’s EU accession talks.
Petkov indirectly accused ITN’s Regional Development Minister Grozdan Karadzhov of contributing to corruption, and stressed that the party opposed the appointment of a new anti-corruption commissioner without providing any arguments for its decision.
President Rumen Radev will now hand the mandate to form a government two more times, to the next two largest parties, but analysts agree the chances of any of them being able to gather an absolute majority necessary to form the government are very slim.
