Reuters. Bulgaria’s small There Is Such a People (ITN) party returned the mandate to form a government to President Rumen Radev on Monday (August 5) after failing to build a stable coalition, putting the country on course for its seventh legislative election in three years.
ITN, which came sixth in an inconclusive June 8 election with only 16 seats in the 240-seat parliament, was offered the mandate on July 29 after the centre-right GERB and the reformist We Continue the Change (PP) had failed to form a government.
Radev must now appoint a caretaker prime minister and has days to call a snap vote, the seventh since 2021, which must happen within two months.
Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and one of its most corrupt states, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 helped topple a coalition led by GERB.