Bulgaria’s president said on Friday that the Balkan country will hold snap elections – its eighth vote in five years – after several parties declined to form a new government.
The EU member, which introduced the euro earlier this month, was plunged into fresh political turmoil after a series of widespread anti-corruption protests swept a conservative-led government from office in mid-December.
“We are going to elections,” President Rumen Radev said on Friday after a third party declined a mandate to form a new government.
Radev will have to appoint an interim prime minister from a list of senior state officials and set a date for fresh elections, which are expected to be held in late March or April.
The conservative GERB party is currently credited with about 18% of voting intentions, followed by the liberal reformist PP-DB coalition with about 14%, according to a recent poll by the Market Links institute.
But around 20% of voters are still undecided, and half of them might be inclined to support any new political party, said Market Links director Dobromir Zhivkov.
Radev has fuelled speculations he may take part in the elections, calling for them to be “free and fair”.
A party headed by Radev could attract “voters across the patriotic and eurosceptic spectrum,” Zhivkov said.
Bulgaria has seen seven snap elections in the wake of massive anti-graft protests in 2020 against the government of three-time premier Boyko Borissov of GERB.
GERB topped the most recent election last year and formed a short-lived coalition government.
The demonstrations that began in late November were provoked by a 2026 draft budget, which protesters branded as an attempt to mask rampant corruption.
Earlier this week, thousands demonstrated, demanding machine voting rather than using ballot papers, saying this would lessen the potential for fraud.
(vib)