Bulgaria Struggles To Have Government After Elections

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

SOFIA (Worthy News) – Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov struggled to form a government after results confirmed his center-right party’s victory in the fifth inconclusive poll in two years.

Borissov, a political veteran who survived protests against corruption, urged the country’s political parties to put a new government in place “whatever the cost.”

However, the runner-up in Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections already said he wouldn’t form a coalition with the winning GERB party.

A leader of We Continue the Change (PP), Assen Vassilev, said that the “National Council of the party has decided that PP will not support a Cabinet with… the participation of the political party GERB.”

Analysts say that Bulgaria’s prolonged political deadlock, caused mainly by personal animosity among leaders of the two main blocs, has already forced the country to delay its target date for adopting the euro.

The Balkan nation also has yet to approve a budget bill for 2023.

The bloc led by the center-right GERB party of former prime minister Boyko Borissov won 26.5 percent of votes in Sunday’s election. However, the pro-Western reformist bloc led by We Continue the Change (PP) had 24.6 percent, official results showed.

REVIVAL PARTY

The nationalist Revival party, seen as sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine war and opposes Bulgaria joining the euro, placed third in Sunday’s election.

It received 14.1 percent, up several percentage points from the previous vote last October.

The ethnic Turkish MRF was in fourth place with 13 percent, and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the heir to the once mighty Communist Party, had 9 percent.

Analysts said Bulgarian voters have grown weary of their politicians’ failure to set aside their differences and cooperate to create a government.

Friends and goes agree that a workable cabinet is urgently necessary to tackle a cost of living crisis and root out rampant corruption.

But it remained unclear this Easter season when and if that will happen.

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