Bulgaria is a step closer to another snap election after Prime Minister-designate Nikolay Denkov failed to form a government within parliament. President Rumen Radev is set to assign the task to a third party, otherwise he will dissolve parliament and schedule a spring election. This would be the fifth election in two years, due to the thousands of Bulgarians taking to the streets in 2020 to demand corruption reforms and a better judiciary.
The turmoil is likely to damage the nation’s plans to join the euro zone in 2024, as well as the timely receipt of billions of euros in EU recovery funds. With such a highly fragmented parliament, the ability to form a government and make lasting change appears minimal. It looks like a new election will have a similar outcome to the current standoff, but citizens hope that something may yet come out of this crisis.
