Bulgaria's PP party fails to form new gov't

By Trend

Bulgaria's largest parliamentary force, the centrist "We Continue the Change" (PP) electoral alliance, on Friday formally abandoned efforts to form a new government after it failed to secure a parliamentary majority, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

Assen Vassilev, the coalition's nominee for prime minister, returned the exploratory mandate to Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, telling him that "unfortunately, we have not been able to gather enough support in order to implement the policies that a future government would like to be able to."

"So, we return the mandate unfulfilled," Vassilev said. He is a co-leader of the PP party, which holds 67 seats in the 240-member Parliament.

Radev, who mandated Vassilev with the task last Friday, said that he now planned to hand over the mandate to the center-right GERB-UDF (Union of Democratic Forces), the second largest parliamentary group holding 59 seats.

According to the Bulgarian Constitution, if the new prime minister-designate also fails to form a government, the third and last exploratory mandate should be given to one of the other parliamentary groups.

If an agreement on the formation of a government still cannot be reached, Radev will schedule new parliamentary elections.

The government led by Kiril Petkov was ousted by a no-confidence vote on June 22, two weeks after the "There Is Such a People" (ITN) party, one of the four partners in the ruling coalition, withdrew its support.

Petkov's government was elected last December after three parliamentary elections within eight months.