Bulgarian Socialist Party to receive third and final mandate to seek to form government

On January 16, head of state President Roumen Radev will hand the Bulgarian Socialist Party the third and final mandate to seek to form a government, the president’s office announced.

The move comes three months and two weeks after Bulgaria held early parliamentary elections on October 2 2022.

The first two mandates – given, respectively, to the two largest parliamentary groups, GERB-UDF and We Continue the Change, did not result in a government being elected.

The constitution, while requiring the first two mandates to be offered to the two largest parliamentary groups, gives the head of state a free hand in choosing to which parliamentary group to hand the third mandate.

Should the third mandate also prove fruitless, the head of state is obliged by the constitution to dissolve the National Assembly, appoint a caretaker government and set a date for early parliamentary elections, two months hence from the date that Parliament is dissolved.

(Archive photo of BSP leader Kornelia Ninova and Radev from September 2021)

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