Borissov: GERB is ‘obliged’ to form the next Bulgarian government
Speaking just more than an hour after exit polls showed that his centre-right party had gained the most votes in Bulgaria’s March 26 early parliamentary elections, GERB leader Boiko Borissov said that his party was obliged to form the country’s next government.
Exit polls by the Alpha Research agency showed that Borissov’s centre-right party would have somewhere between 86 and 88 seats in the 44th National Assembly – making the search for a viable coalition government essential, to reach a minimum of half plus one in the 240-seat legislature.
Borissov, twice Bulgaria’s prime minister – from 2009 to early 2013 and again from November 2014 until January 2017 – expressed hope that he would be able to form a government as soon as possible.
GERB was obliged to form the next government, Borissov told reporters.
He pledged that Bulgaria would cope well with its European Union presidency in the first half of 2018, and that he would come up with a stable government.
Borissov said that going by the first results from the March 26 2017 elections, the Bulgarian people had made a “wise choice”.
The most likely options facing him include coming up with a viable deal with the nationalist United Patriots coalition, and adding what remains of his erstwhile coalition partner from November 2014, the centre-right Reformist Bloc – representing that part that has not since gone into opposition to him.
A timeline of key political events in Bulgaria from 2007 to 2017 is available on The Sofia Globe’s special page.
The Sofia Globe election factfile about Bulgaria’s March 2017 vote is online here.
German-language coverage of the elections is on The Sofia Globe Deutsch page.
/Politics