SOFIA -- Bulgaria is heading to new parliamentary elections after the antiestablishment party that narrowly won last month’s vote gave up efforts to form a government.
Slavi Trifonov, leader of There Is Such A People (ITN), said in a video statement released from Sofia on August 10 that the party decided not to propose a government after two apparently sympathetic protest parties said they would not support it.
"We will not present our proposed cabinet for a vote [of confidence in parliament], as we have clearly declared that we will not be presenting a cabinet without the support" of Democratic Bulgaria and a group called Stand Up, BG! We are coming!," he said.
In the July 11 elections, ITN won only 65 seats in Bulgaria's fragmented 240-seat parliament.
Trifonov said that his party would not support any other party that might try to form a government, meaning that the country is "heading toward new elections."
The GERB party of the previous prime minister, Boyko Borisov, which holds 63 parliamentary seats said earlier it would not try to form a government.
The other parties in parliament do not have enough seats to do so.
President Rumen Radev called the July parliamentary elections in April, when no one was able to put together a government with majority support in the legislature.
