|
Zhelyazkov, a former parliament speaker, said after receiving
the mandate that he was putting forward a proposal for a
minority government.
Radev will forward the GERB proposal to parliament, which is
then due to vote in the coming days.
GERB won 68 seats in the 240-seat parliament in the June 8
election - the country's sixth snap poll in three years - but is
yet to secure the support of at least two other political
parties that it would need to command a majority.
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.
It needs a period of stable, well-functioning government to
accelerate the flow of EU funds into its creaking infrastructure
and to nudge it towards joining the euro and fully participating
in Europe's open-border Schengen area.
Plans to join the eurozone have already been pushed back twice
because of missed inflation targets.
June's election was triggered by the collapse in March of a
coalition comprising GERB, which had held power for much of the
previous 15 years, and the relatively new, reformist We Continue
the Change (PP) party.
The two parties, both strongly pro-EU but divided by personal
rivalries and distrust, said in March they could not form a new
government without another election.
The PP won 39 seats in the June poll, behind the Movement for
Rights and Freedom, mainly representing Bulgaria's large ethnic
Turkish minority, which won 47 seats. The ultra-nationalist
Revival party won 38 seats.
(Reporting by Stoyan Nenov; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing
by Alex Richardson)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
