November 11 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria is facing the possibility of early parliamentary elections, given the results of the first round of the presidential elections, and this could negatively affect the country's credit rating, the Croatian unit of Raiffeisen Bank International said on Friday.
Bulgarians will go to polls to vote on a second round of presidential elections on November 13 in what is likely to be a tight race between former Air Force commander Rumen Radev backed by opposition Socialist party, and parliament speaker Tsetska Tsacheva, candidate of centre-right governing party GERB. Final results of the first round showed Radev leading over Tsacheva by 3.48 percentage points.
"In Bulgaria a strong result of the socialist contender Rumen Radev in the first round of presidential elections can lead to the early parliamentary elections if the ruling party candidate would lose in the second round this week-end. Early elections would be somewhat credit-negative," the analysts of Zagreb-based Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in a weekly outlook. "This holds especially true in the current global market setting."
Earlier on Friday prime minister Boyko Borissov said that the presidential elections will be decisive for the future of the country's coalition government. "If people do not approve of us, we have no right to govern," Borissov told a local TV station. Bulgaria's minority government was formed by GERB, the Reformist Bloc - an alliance of five right-wing parties - left-wing ABV, and the Patriotic Front.
"However, in case of Bulgaria we see the investor base as being used to some degree of political volatility, not having much real impact on economic policy and the fiscal stance," RBA added.
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