Boyko Borissov, leader of the election-winning GERB party, said he was ready to give up the prime minister’s seat in future negotiations to form a government in Sofia but warned that this would be his only compromise.

Borissov claims that by doing so, he is compromising himself in the negotiations for a government with the liberal coalition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB), the second political force.

GERB won the snap election with 24.7% of the vote and needs the support of at least two other parties to form a governing coalition. PP-DB came in second with 14.3%.

Borissov has made the election of a GERB candidate as parliamentary speaker a condition for his party’s participation in cabinet formation talks.

“With this clear and brilliant victory of GERB, parliamentarism requires that the speaker be from GERB. And if they decide to create unnecessary obstacles, we will no longer participate in talks. With no one. Because it is not fair,” Borissov said on Monday.

The position of Borissov and the PP-DB coalition raises the likelihood that Bulgaria is heading for an eighth snap election in three and a half years, in February 2025.

The PP-DB has already announced that it will not support a GERB candidate and may put forward its own candidate for speaker of parliament.

At the same time, political statements following the Bulgarian elections suggest that the formation of a new government will depend on the role of Bulgarian politician Delyan Peevski, who has been sanctioned by Washington and London for corruption.

The Liberal Coalition has made it a condition for Borissov to avoid having anything to do with Peevski, the leader of MRF-New Beginni, who has been accused by the PP-DB and other parties of dubious dependence on Peevski, has refused to take a clear position on the politician sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act. MRF – New Beginnings is the fourth largest force in parliament, with 11.5% of the vote.

Former prime minister Nikolai Denkov (PP-DB) commented that there are two options for a government in Sofia: “One that works with the active participation of MRF – New Beginning or one without the Peevski’s formation.”

Peevski himself published an open letter to Borissov on Tueremindingminded him of the biggest nightmare of his political career – his 24-hour arrest in 2022 while in government with Prime Minister Kiril Petkov (PP-DB). Peevski alsd that he did not want Borissov to retire in 2023, as the PP-DB leaders wished.

Borisov has two clear options for forming a government. One is with the participation of the coalition of the PP-DB and the Alliance for Rights and Freedrepresentingsents part of the country’s Turkish minority.

The other option is a much more Eurosceptic government with Peevski’s group, the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party and the populist There Is Such a People party.

At the end of last week, Borissov told EU ambassadors in Sofia that he would make all possible compromises to form a proper government.

Bulgaria is seen by European partners and the US as particularly unstable and vulnerable to Russian influence because of the severe political crisis and war in Ukraine.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

Source: Euractiv.com