Parliamentary Elections: Bulgaria Banned | tagesschau.de

In the parliamentary elections, the party of the conservative Prime Minister Borissov was the strongest force again. They missed the absolute majority. The formation of the government will be difficult.

Just before midnight local time, Boyko Borissov turned to the audience via his Facebook channel: In an impromptu speech outside amid heavy snowfall in front of his garden and his black SUV, which he used on his campaign trips to the county, he called for the formation of a “broad coalition government.” “:

Clemens Ferencott
ARD studio Vienna

Borisov said: “Dear opponents, I offer you peace.” “I suggest that we put experts at the summit, take responsibility and do everything we can by December for Bulgaria to emerge from the epidemic and recover. This is my suggestion for everyone. Let’s see if we can act on behalf of the country. We can unite.”

Profits of protest parties

His right-wing Islah and Southern party was able to assert itself as the strongest political force at around 24 percent, as expected, but according to interim official results, it had to accept a sharp drop in votes compared to the last parliamentary elections in 2017. The opposition Socialists suffered losses. Greater, as they dropped by more than a dozen percent and only got around 15 percent. This was announced by the Central Election Commission (ZEC) after counting about 42 percent of the vote.

The actual winners in the parliamentary elections are the protest parties that managed to gain their ground from the mass demonstrations against Borisov last summer. According to ZIK, the newly established party “There is such a people” by TV presenter and singer Slawi Trifono reached more than 19 percent.

No cooperation with “old powers”

After the polling stations closed, Trivonov announced that he had symptoms of corona and entered quarantine. His deputy, Toshko Giordano, ruled out any cooperation with the “old forces”:

People demanded change, and this status quo no longer exists from now on. We will keep our promise: We will not form a coalition with the Turkish Minority Party for Rights and Freedoms (Turkish Minority Party), (Socialists in) BSP and (Right-wing extremists in) IMRO when the last party in Parliament comes. We will not do this because, unlike them, we are not lying.

New elections are not excluded

And the civil rights party “Democratic Bulgaria” will move with its co-chair, former Minister of Justice, Hristo Ivanov, to Parliament, according to the interim results. His party played a major role in exposing an apparent abuse of power by the government and the subsequent mass demonstrations against Borissov.

“We have succeeded in putting new topics on the agenda of dialogue with many new parts of Bulgarian society,” Ivanov said. “We have been able to unleash new energy, outside of Bulgaria as well. This is a very big change as we see the outlines of a new Bulgaria that will be born from now on, even if it is difficult. We see a new Bulgaria, in which Boyko Borisov can go on winning the elections with his administrative and financial resources.” But he cannot take power. ”

With his former coalition partners, Borisov no longer has a majority in the 240-seat parliament. And the protest parties are far from achieving a majority. New elections cannot be ruled out after failed attempts to forge a viable coalition.