Brussels (Brussels Morning) Bulgaria seems set on a path towards holding its third parliamentary elections this year, now that the country’s strongest party has abandoned efforts to form a ruling coalition and announced that it would not support any other party attempting to do so.
The leader of the populist anti-establishment party There Is Such a People (ITN), singer and TV host Slavi Trifonov, announced on Tuesday that he would not put his proposed cabinet to the vote in parliament on Wednesday, having failed to secure the backing of two smaller anti-establishment parties.
ITN emerged as the relative winner in July’s snap elections, edging just ahead of the centre-right GERB party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. The July polls saw a drop in support for the centre-left socialist BSP for Bulgaria (BSP) and a slight boost for two anti-corruption parties, Stand up! Mafia out! (ISMV) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB).
Trifonov hoped to form a minority government with the support of ISMV and DB, but both parties ultimately rejected his plan, disagreeing with his ministerial selections. The popular singer released a video statement on Tuesday, accusing ISMV and DB of betrayal, and announced that the country would hold new elections.
Despite Trifonov’s announcement, the country’s constitution mandates two more attempts at forming a government, with the President Rumen Radev likely to hand over the mandate first to GERB, then to BSP. Neither stands a realistic chance of forming a government without ITN’s backing, however.
Trifonov also dismissed appeals by the smaller parties to back a short-term, six-month government in order to avoid a political crisis and to help the country gain EU approval for its recovery and resilience plan, a prerequisite for Bulgaria if it is to access the EU’s coronavirus recovery funds.
With two further attempts at forming a government all but guaranteed to fail, President Radev is thought likely to have to disband parliament yet again, and to appoint a caretaker government – most probably retaining the caretaker government assembled after the April elections failed to produce a conclusive result – and to set a date for new snap elections.
