(Adnkronos) – The Bulgarian Parliament approves a coalition government led by the conservatives of Gerb, formed in an attempt to end the most prolonged political crisis in the history of the Balkan country since the end of Soviet communism. One hundred and twenty-five legislators voted in favor of the new government formation, led by former Parliament Speaker Rossen Jeliazkov, while 114 voted against.
Bulgaria has gone through seven elections in four years, since a series of massive anti-corruption protests led to the resignation of Boyko Borisov, three-time premier and Gerb leader, in 2021. His party, which won the elections last October, announced yesterday that it had managed to find a coalition agreement with the Socialists, a populist party and a faction of the Turkish minority in Parliament. Borisov’s waiver to become prime minister for the fourth time was a condition of the agreement.
“The country has long been in a political crisis, a crisis of confidence,” Jeliazkov said, promising to work to overcome it. The partners of the new coalition reached the agreement “in a difficult, dynamic and tense period… putting aside our ideological and political differences,” he added in his speech to Parliament. The 56-year-old lawyer is a close ally of Borisov and has held various positions, including that of transport minister, in previous Gerb-led governments.
Yesterday, the Conservative Party said the new government will continue efforts to bring Bulgaria into the eurozone. After years of waiting, Sofia obtained full membership of the Schengen area on 1 January last, but still has to guarantee price stability in order to be able to apply to join the euro area from 2026. The priorities of the new government also include the modernization of the army and the improvement of judicial procedures.
According to analysts, there are doubts that the coalition can last. “It will be a difficult government, in practice it is a coalition of four parties, it cannot be easy,” political analyst Daniel Smilov of the Center for Liberal Strategies told Afp, while acknowledging that the solution reached “is better than going from one election to another. In the most optimistic scenario, the coalition will last a year or so to fulfill some urgent tasks, such as the country’s entry into the eurozone, the guarantee of European funds for recovery and the approval of this year’s budget,” he added.
In a recent poll conducted by the Myara polling agency, 76% of respondents said they were ready to accept any compromise between political parties in order to finally have a government. Pollster Parvan Simeonov called the new administration a “survival cabinet” and stressed that it was “necessary to form a government” after four years of political crisis.
