Bulgaria to hold snap vote following collapse of coalition talks

Bulgaria is heading for early elections after the country’s main political parties refused to form a government, following the resignation of the previous administration amid widespread public protests.

President Rumen Radev announced the decision today, noting that his final attempt to secure a governing majority had failed, according to foreign media reports.

On Friday, January 16, he offered the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms a last opportunity to form a cabinet, but the party declined, becoming the third group this week to reject such a mandate. With no party able to command sufficient seats in Bulgaria’s fragmented parliament, early polls have become unavoidable. These will be the country’s eighth elections in four years.

“We will go to the elections,” Radev stated.

Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s coalition, supported by the largest parliamentary bloc GERB-SDS, resigned last month after weeks of demonstrations against entrenched state corruption and a proposed budget that would have raised several taxes.

Zhelyazkov’s resignation came shortly before Bulgaria joined the eurozone on January 1, triggering a constitutional procedure under which both GERB-SDS and the reformist PP-DB declined the president’s invitations earlier this week to assemble a ruling coalition.

With the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms also rejecting his mandate on Friday, Radev is now required to appoint a caretaker government and set a date for the new elections.

As the European Union’s poorest member state, Bulgaria urgently requires political stability to accelerate the use of EU funding for its deteriorating infrastructure, attract foreign investment, and address entrenched systemic corruption.

By Tamilla Hasanova