SOFIA (Bulgaria), April 27 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria’s president Rumen Radev said on on Thursday he handed a mandate to form government to Boyko Borissov, leader of centre-right GERB party, the biggest political force in parliament.
“I believe that the government programme will meet the key expectations of the Bulgarian people regarding security, incomes, justice and the rule of law,” Radev said on his official Facebook page.
Borissov, nominated for prime minister by GERB, will now have one week to submit to the president a government line-up or return the mandate.
Earlier this month, GERB announced it had agreed on a coalition government programme with United Patriots, an alliance of three nationalist parties.
According to the programme, Bulgaria will aim to reach GDP of 120 billion levs ($65.18 billion/61.34 billion euro) during the four-year term of office of the future coalition cabinet. It also envisages minimum monthly wage to increase to 650 levs, while the average monthly wage will rise to 1,500 levs. The average gross monthly wage in Bulgaria was 990 levs at end-2016, while the minimum wage was 460 levs.
In the early elections held on March 26, GERB won of 33.54% of the vote against 27.93% for their main opponent, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), while the United Patriots garnered 9.31% support. Two other paries - Volya (Will) party, led by businessman Veselin Mareshki, and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), which represents mainly Bulgarian ethnic Turks and Muslims, also passed the 4% threshold to enter parliament.
GERB and the United Patriots control among themselves 122 of 240 seats in the new parliament.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)