January 24 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which was tasked with making the third and final attempt to form the country's new government, on Tuesday returned the mandate unfulfilled to president Rumen Radev after failing to muster enough political support in parliament.
Radev will meet representatives of the central electoral commission later on Tuesday before making the decision on when to dissolve parliament and call new general elections that will be the fifth vote for members of parliament in two years.
The Socialists made the utmost effort to ensure legislation can be passed on its stated four priority issues: achieving membership for Bulgaria of the Schengen passport-free travel zone, speeding up work required to facilitate the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, passing the 2023 budget and advancing judicial reform, but failed to reach the necessary cross-party agreement on them to propose a cabinet, Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova said, as seen in a live broadcast by public television BNT.
Bulgaria has held four inconclusive general elections in under two years, the most recent in October 2022, with increasingly fragmented parliaments yielded amid low voter turnout. The country has been run by a caretaker government appointed by president Radev since August 2022 when the four-party coalition government headed by Kiril Petkov, leader of We Continue the Change party, collapsed after losing a no-confidence vote.
A new cabinet needs the backing of at least 121 members of the 240-seat National Assembly to take office. Each of the two biggest parties in the current parliament - GERB-UDF and runner-up We Continue the Change - failed in their attempts to win parliamentary support for forming a government when mandated by the president.