Bulgaria to hold snap election because of public anger over corruption

Bulgaria will hold a snap parliamentary election on July 11, after a third and final attempt to form a government following April 4 polls that led to a fragmented parliament failed, President Rumen Radev said on Wednesday.

Long-serving Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s centre-right GERB again emerged as the largest party after last month’s election but it lost seats amid widespread public anger over entrenched corruption in the political elite. With Borissov

short of a majority and unable to forge a new coalition,

the president had asked a new anti-elite party led by TV host Slavi Trifonov to do so but it also failed, as did the third largest party in the new parliament, the Socialists.

“Bulgaria needs a strong-willed political alternative, which the current parliament failed to produce,” Radev said after the Socialist Party returned the mandate to form a government. The stalemate left Radev, a harsh critic of Borissov’s failure to crack down on graft, with no alternative but to appoint an interim technocrat administration and call another snap election.