President to offer Bulgarian Socialist Party mandate to seek to form government
Bulgarian President Roumen Radev will on July 18 at 5pm offer to the candidate Prime Minister from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) the third and final mandate to seek to form a government, according to a brief statement in the appointments schedule on the Presidency website.
Should this final stage of handing over mandates to seek to form a government prove fruitless, Bulgaria will head to early parliamentary elections later this year.
The Kiril Petkov-Assen Vassilev We Continue the Change (WCC) party, as Parliament’s largest group, received the first mandate but returned it unfulfilled, saying that it had not rallied sufficient support in the House to get a government elected.
The second mandate went to Parliament’s second-largest group, GERB-UDF, which returned it immediately, saying that it did not believe electing a government in this Parliament would be possible.
The constitution gives the President a free hand in choosing to which parliamentary group to offer the third mandate.
The announcement that it will go to the BSP – the third-largest group in Parliament – follows consultations that Radev held on July 15 with all seven parliamentary groups.
At the Friday consultations with Radev, BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said: “We fully understand the complex situation in which the country finds itself,” and declared the readiness of the BSP parliamentary group to make an effort to guarantee a functioning Parliament and stable government if receiving the third mandate.
Ninova said that the basis of the talks on forming a Cabinet should be the programme recently prepared by the (remaining three) governing coalition partners, which outlines clear deadlines and priorities related to an adequate social policy, a stable economy and stopping corruption.
Ninova has said that the candidate Prime Minister should come from WCC, given that the Petkov-Vassilev party is the largest group in Parliament.
(Photo, from the July 15 meeting between Radev and the BSP delegation headed by Ninova: president.bg)
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