President to Assign Third Mandate to Form a Government

The head of state will assign the parliamentary group of “Alliance for Rights and Freedoms” to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister tomorrow. This was announced by the President's press secretariat.

According to the Constitution, after the resignation of the cabinet, the President must begin a new procedure for handing out exploratory mandates for the formation of a government. According to the Basic Law, after consultations, the President assigns a candidate for Prime Minister, nominated by the largest parliamentary group in terms of numbers, to form a government. If within seven days the candidate fails to propose a composition of the Council of Ministers, the President assigns this to a candidate for Prime Minister nominated by the second largest parliamentary group. If in this case, a government composition is not proposed, again within a one-week period, the President assigns a subsequent parliamentary group to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister.

If no agreement is reached for a government, the President, after consultations with the parliamentary groups and at the proposal of the candidate for caretaker Prime Minister, appoints a caretaker government and sets new elections within a two-month period. 

Yesterday, President Rumen Radev handed over the second mandate for the formation of a government to "We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB), who immediately returned it unfulfilled.

Nadezhda Yordanova told the President that, by decision of the parliamentary group, she was formally tasked with fulfilling the procedure of accepting the mandate and returning it immediately as unfulfilled. The decision of the WCC-DB parliamentary group to return the mandate as unfulfilled is motivated by the fact that in the 51st National Assembly there is no possibility of forming a reformist majority that would dismantle the model of the captured state, said Yordanova.

The big question is not when the elections will be, but what kind of elections we will have, said President Rumen Radev after the return of the mandate. With this refusal, the possibilities for forming a government within the framework of the 51st Parliament are greatly narrowing, the head of state pointed out. He added that he expects from the leaders of political parties not to tell him when to schedule the elections, but to show political initiative and responsibility, to familiarize themselves with the decision of the Constitutional Court of March 13 last year, which, according to the President, "describes only part of the atrocities during the last parliamentary elections".

At the beginning of the week, outgoing Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov received in his capacity as a candidate for Prime Minister from GERB-SDS and immediately returned the first exploratory mandate for the formation of a cabinet unfulfilled. We believe that March 29 is a good date for holding the elections, Zhelyazkov said at the time, adding that GERB-SDS's understanding is for the elections to be as soon as possible.

At the end of 2025, the President held consultations with the parliamentary groups after the government with Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov resigned. At the time, Radev stated that he would hand over the first mandate after the New Year.