Unstable Bulgaria Set for Minority Government
Bulgarian right-winger Boyko Borisov said Tuesday he would form a minority government after failing to form a coalition following elections this month, warning that yet another vote would be "fatal" for the EU's poorest country.
Talks with other parties "made it clear that the only possible formula for a government... is to form a minority coalition between (his party) GERB and the Reformist Bloc," Borisov told journalists after negotiations in Sofia.
"All party leaders categorically agreed that snap elections this winter will be fatal for the country," said the 55-year-old former prime minister.
The last two years in former communist Bulgaria have been marked by mass protests, with two governments collapsing after failing to boost living standards and root out corruption and cronyism.
One of those governments to fail was headed by none other than Borisov, who resigned in February 2013 after tens of thousands of people took to the streets across the country. It too was a minority administration.
In the latest election on October 5, Borisov's right-wing GERB party won but fell well short of a majority with just 84 lawmakers in a highly fragmented 240-seat parliament, where seven other parties won seats.
He aims to form a minority coalition with the right-wing Reformist Bloc, which has 23 seats, although that party said it would prefer to have the Patriotic Front, with 19 lawmakers, on board too.
Source: Agence France Presse
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