Bulgaria faces another snap vote as latest bid to form new government fails
Al Jazeera
President of the Balkan nation expected to call for new vote after three parties fail to garner enough support to govern.
Bulgaria is heading for its seventh parliamentary elections in three years after the last of three political parties tapped by President Rumen Radev to form a coalition government failed due to lack of support.
The Balkan country has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anticorruption protests in 2020 helped topple a coalition led by the centre-right populist GERB party.
The small populist ITN party, which was tasked with forming a new government by Radev a week ago, returned its mandate on Monday. In talks with other parties, it was unable to persuade 121 of the 240 lawmakers required to support the formation of a government.
After a meeting with Radev, Toshko Yordanov, chairman of the ITN parliamentary group, told reporters on Monday that the parties were unable to find common ground on forming a new government.
“The political wisdom of one party was not enough to make a decision, … so we return the mandate unfulfilled,” said Yordanov, whose party came sixth in the last elections held in June, winning just 16 seats in the 240-member parliament.
