There Is Such a People party to return mandate to form Bulgaria's next govt
The prime minister-designate of Bulgarian populist party There Is Such a People elections will return the mandate to form government, as the party does not have enough seats in parliament and partners in order to form a stable cabinet, party leader Slavi Trifonov said on Monday.
The party's nominee for prime minister, world chess champion Antoaneta Stefanova, will return the mandate as soon as she receives it from president Rumen Radev, Trifonov, a TV show host and a musician, said in a Facebook post.
After There Is Such a People return the mandate, the president will be required to hand the mandate to a representative of one of the remaining parliamentary groups. If no government is formed after that round, the president will appoint a caretaker cabinet and call new elections.
The party led by Trifonov holds 51 of 240-seats in parliament after coming in second with 17.66% of the vote in the April 4 general election. A proposed government needs the support of at least 121 members of parliament.
Last week, first-placed centre-right GERB-UDF coalition, which controls 75 seats in parliament, also returned the mandate to form government as no other party was willing to hold talks on a potential coalition government with its prime minister-designate Daniel Mitov.
The remaining four parties in parliament are the Bulgarian Socialist Party, which holds 43 seats, the ethnic Turks' Movement for Rights and Freedoms with 30 MPs, and anti-corruption formations Democratic Bulgaria and Rise Up, Thugs Out with 27 and 14 seats, respectively.