(13 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sofia, Bulgaria - 13 June 2024
1. Leader of centre-right GERB party Boyko Borissov and other officials from party enter news conference room
2. Borissov takes seat
3. SOUNDBITE (Bulgarian) Boyko Borissov, former Prime Minister and leader of the center-right GERB party:
“From Monday, we will invite the leaders of all parties, because there are two tasks: one is the government, the other is the parliament. And if it is possible to negotiate at the same time, because of the strained relations between the leaders, I think it would be a working process.”
4. Close of Borissov’s hands
5. Wide of news conference
6. SOUNDBITE (Bulgarian) Boyko Borissov, former Prime Minister and leader of the center-right GERB party:
“We propose to form an expert cabinet dominated by GERB in the important ministries: especially Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Defense. This is what the election results show. If we can hold a dialogue with responsible politicians, we will form a government only with the first mandate we are given."
7. EU, Ukrainian and Bulgarian flags seen at the GERB party headquarters
STORYLINE:
Former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, whose center-right GERB party emerged as the winner of Bulgaria’s parliamentary election, invited his political opponents Thursday to talk about forming a new government.

Speaking to reporters at his party’s headquarters, he stated that he does not want to be prime minister but cautioned that there would be a government only if the prime minister was named by his party.

Borissov proposed the formation of an expert cabinet but insisted that the ministries of foreign affairs and defense should also be taken by GERB.

Borissov said that if these conditions are not met and the other parties are thinking of revenge and avoiding dialogue, Bulgaria will head to another election in September.

Results from Sunday’s election showed GERB with 24.7% of the vote, edging out the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms which surprisingly came in second with 17.1%, ahead of the pro-Western reformist bloc led by the We Continue the Change party with 14.3%.

Four other parties also gained seats in the 240-seat chamber, according to official results.

Borissov led three governments between 2009 and early 2021, when his third cabinet resigned amid massive anti-corruption protests.

The reformist We Continue the Change party-led coalition, that was created a couple of years ago with the clear aim of opposing and defeating Borissov’s corruption-tainted government, announced on Thursday that it would not support a Cabinet with the participation of GERB.

After running neck and neck in last July’s election, the two rival groups sought to break the political stalemate by forming an uneasy governing coalition, but it survived only nine months.

In heated campaigning for the latest election, both parties leveled charges of corruption against the other, and analysts saw little chance of the two trying to work together again.

On Thursday, the leader of the reformist group, Kiril Petkov, rejected Borissov’s proposal saying that they will be a “firm opposition”.

AP video by Valentina Petrova

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