New parliamentary elections will be held in Bulgaria in the spring after the third and last possible attempt to form a new government failed.
Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Kornelia Ninova, who was handed the third mandate to form a new government on January 16, said she will return it to President Rumen Radev on January 23.
Ninova met on January 20 with the leaders of three other parties, but they could not reach a majority. She said the parties had been "extremely responsible” in trying to form a new government.
“We were looking for what would unite us, not what would divide us. We were looking for a solution to get out of the political crisis," Ninova said.
Under the constitution, Radev must dissolve the parliament and schedule elections within 60 days of issuing the dissolution decree, but there is no restriction on when he can do this. If Radev dissolves the parliament next week, a new election would be held March 26.
The parliamentary elections will be the fifth vote in Bulgaria since April 2021.
Radev 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."
Two parties -- GERB and the reformist We Continue the Change -- finished first and second in the last parliamentary elections on October 2, but they failed to cobble together a coalition government.
The meeting on January 20 included the chairmen of GERB, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), and the Bulgarian Rise (BV) parties.
Representatives of We Continue The Change (PP), Democratic Bulgaria (DB) and the pro-Russian far-right Vazrazhdane (Revival) party did not attend the meeting.
Boyko Borisov of the GERB party said after the meeting that he would ask GERB’s leaders whether they would agree with a negotiation on the formation of an expert government, including with the BSP, in a reversal of the GERB’s previous position not to hold negotiations on forming a government with the socialists.
Borisov, who spent three divisive tenures as prime minister between 2009 and 2021, and his GERB party have been the target of widespread corruption accusations, and most groups have dismissed talk of cooperation with Borisov.
Despite the failure of the attempt to achieve a mandate, Ninova said that the socialists remain "open to conversations that are important for the Bulgarian people." She also rejected claims that the party was responsible for the failure to form a government.
"The suggestion that the third mandate holder, whoever he is, is to blame for something is manipulation. After the first failed, and then the second, the responsibility should hardly be borne by the third," she said.