Bulgarians to go to the polls on July 11

Bulgaria decided to hold a snap parliamentary election after the Socialist Party had returned the mandate to form a government.

“Bulgaria needs a strong-willed political alternative, which the current parliament failed to produce. Next week I will dissolve the parliament and appoint an interim government. In this situation, the election is expected to be held on July 11,” Radev said.

Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 4 April 2021.

After his offer of a technocrat government was rejected by the opposition, the head of the conservative political party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), Boyko Borisov, said that as leader of the largest party, he would try to form a coalition government and that he would also be open to supporting an ITN-led government.

However, Borisov himself stated he would likely be unsuccessful in forming a coalition, with the likeliest outcomes being either a caretaker government followed by new elections or a coalition of parties new to Parliament.

After former foreign minister Daniel Mitov, whom Boyko Borisov had nominated as GERB's candidate for prime minister, failed to form a government,[18] the mandate was then offered to chess grandmaster Antoaneta Stefanova, whom Slavi Trifonov of ITN supported to head a new government, but she immediately declined it.

Korneliya Ninova of BSPzB will formally receive the final mandate from president Rumen Radev on 5 May 2021 but has already announced that she will also refuse to form a government. This has triggered an early election and the president will then name an interim government. (ILKHA)