Bulgarian PM resigns after presidential election failure

The Bulgarian Prime Minister on Monday announced the resignation of his cabinet after his party's candidate failed to win the second round of the country's presidential election.

Socialist Party-supported independent candidate Rumen Radev beat centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party candidate Tsetska Tsacheva on Sunday, EFE news reported.

A government statement said Prime Minister Boyko Borisov had told members of parliament that his government would continue in their positions until a new cabinet was formed.

Borisov, who has been Prime Minister since 2009 except for a one-and-a-half year interval, thus lived up to a promise he made during the campaign in which he said he would resign if GERB's Tsetska Tsacheva did not win the election.

Tsacheva, chair of the National Assembly, lost the second round with 36.17 per cent of the vote to Radev, who secured 59.35 per cent, according to Bulgaria's Central Election Commission with 99.3 per cent of the votes counted.

Borisov warned on Sunday that his government would tender a bloc resignation as exit polls pointed to a win for Radev, a former air force commander with no political experience.

"The results showed that the governing coalition now has no majority and could not even pass the budget," the Prime Minister said on Sunday.

The current coalition formed by GERB, the centre-right Reformist Bloc and the nationalistic Patriotic Front has seen constant friction among the three parties since coming to power at the end of 2014.

Outgoing President Rosen Plevneliev must now ask the parliament's majority party, GERB, to form a government, but Borisov said he will refuse the task, suggesting the Bulgarian Socialist Party, who holds the second most seats, attempts to do so.

BSP leader Kornelia Ninova has however said she is not willing to do this either.

--IANS

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