Bulgaria heads for yet another snap election

Bulgaria will once again hold a snap parliamentary election, a month after the country’s last government collapsed, President Rumen Radev announced Friday.

He had most recently tasked the centrist Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS) group with forming a government, but it rejected the chance to nominate a prime ministerial candidate. This marks the third time a party has rejected the president’s request this week alone.

APS Chairman Hayri Sadakov said Friday: “Our parliamentary group authorized me to return the third exploratory mandate unfulfilled, so that through our joint efforts we can bring about honest, free, transparent and democratic elections.”

Radev’s mandate to form a new government was rejected by the conservative GERB-SDS group Monday and by pro-EU PP-DB group Wednesday.

“We are heading to elections,” Radev said, according to local media. Under the country’s constitution, the president must now appoint a caretaker prime minister after consultations with the parliamentary groups and schedule new polls.

The last prime minister, Rosen Zhelyazkov resigned in December, following weeks of anti-corruption protests against his government. His Cabinet, which took office in January 2025, survived six votes of no confidence before collapsing.

The vote will be Bulgaria’s eighth election in four years. No prime minister since 2021 has managed to serve a full four-year term.