Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said on January 24 that the country would hold early elections on April 2 after inconclusive October vote failed to produce a government.
The April 2 parliamentary elections will be the fifth time within two years that Bulgaria elects a legislature.
Radev told journalists that he would dissolve parliament on February 3 and appoint a new caretaker government without offering details about its composition. A day earlier, he had that he would once again appoint Galab Donev as interim prime minister. He expressed hope lawmakers would use the time until then to adopt legislation needed to ensure European Union aid funds were tapped efficiently.
"I hope that the fight against corruption...and European integration are a real priority and not just preelection promises," he said.
Radev's announcement came hours after Bulgaria's Socialist Party (BSP) on January 24 said it had failed to form a government and had returned the unfulfilled mandate to the president.
It was the third and final opportunity for a government to be formed under the current legislature that resulted after the October 2 elections.
"We have done everything that was needed to fulfill the third mandate," BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said, adding that "there was not enough will to form a working government."
Before the Socialist attempt at forming a coalition, the two strongest groups in Bulgaria's parliament -- the center-right GERB party and the reformist We Continue the Change party, which finished first and second in the October elections -- had each tried and failed to find enough support to form their own governments.
Radev then chose the BSP to fulfill the mandate because he believed the party had the "best chance" to form a government and had preserved the "dialogue with all the political parties represented in the parliament."
Under Bulgaria's constitution, Radev must dissolve the parliament and schedule elections within 60 days of issuing the dissolution decree -- most likely in April.
The GERB party of Boyko Borisov, who spent three divisive tenures as prime minister between 2009 and 2021, has been the target of widespread corruption accusations, and most groups have dismissed talk of cooperation with Borisov.
Analysts say another election would most likely result again in a fragmented parliament that will struggle to find a compromise and form a working coalition government.
The continuing political crisis is expected to impede the European Union's poorest country's plans to join the euro zone at the end of this year, as well as the timely receipt of billions of euros in EU recovery funds.