World News | Bulgaria's New Parliament Convenes for First Session
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Bulgaria's new parliament convened Wednesday for its first session since the country's July 11 election.
Sofia (Bulgaria), Jul 21 (AP) Bulgaria's new parliament convened Wednesday for its first session since the country's July 11 election.
The second election in just three months elevated an anti-elite party as the winner to edge out Boyko Borissov's center right GERB party for the first time since 2009.
The country's president will give the party There is Such a People, led by popular television entertainer Slavi Trifonov, a mandate to form a government under the terms of the Bulgarian Constitution.
The party's nominee for parliamentary speaker, legal expert Iva Miteva, was elected to the position in a 137-1 vote Wednesday. There were 99 abstentions.
Even though the new party won the most seats in the election at 65, it fell well short of the majority needed to form a government on its own.
Five other parties have made it into the 240-seat chamber including Borissov's GERB with 63 seats.
The Socialist Party came in third with 36 seats, followed by the liberal anti-corruption group Democratic Bulgaria with 34 seats, the ethnic Turkish MRF party with 29 seats and the center-left alliance Stand Up! We are Coming! with 13 legislators.
Trifonov's party had declared before the vote that it would form a coalition only with two other groups that were part of last year's massive street protests against Borissov's government. But the results show that their combined seats don't command a majority in parliament.
Analysts predict that despite the widespread desire for change after months of protests, the vote failed to resolve the political impasse, and a possible fresh round of elections would only add to the woes of the European Union's poorest member country. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)