SOFIA -- A Bulgarian caretaker government led by Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev was sworn in by parliament on April 9 after being appointed by President Rumen Radev, who also announced snap general elections for June 9.
The elections, which will be the sixth since April 2021, were prompted by the refusal on March 28 of the populist There Is Such a People (ITN) party to form a government, the third party to decline the mandate.
Previously, the center-right GERB party and its former coalition partner, the pro-Western Continue the Change/Democratic Bulgaria (CCDB), both said they could not form a new cabinet.
Following elections in April last year, Bulgaria had a joint government supported by the reformist CCDB and GERB. They had agreed on an 18-month government with a rotation of prime ministers -- first, Nikolay Denkov from CCDB and after nine months, Maria Gabriel from GERB.
Denkov stepped down on March 5 to let GERB lead the government for the following nine months, as agreed. But Gabriel failed to form a government, and on March 27 Denkov also rejected Radev's invitation to try to put together a cabinet.
The fresh poll is set to coincide with elections for Bulgaria's members of the European Parliament.
Before the April 2023 elections, the country was run by caretaker governments appointed by Radev in the absence of a stable elected coalition.
Radev on April 6 gave Glavchev, the head of Bulgaria's Court of Auditors, the mandate to set up a caretaker government.
Glavchev's cabinet is the sixth caretaker government that Radev has appointed since he became president and the first one to be formed according to new rules adopted at the end of last year.
Before becoming head of the Court of Auditors, the 60-year-old Glavchev was a member of GERB and was speaker of parliament in 2017.
Bulgaria is the poorest of the 27 members of the European Union and has been wrestling with widespread corruption.
The Balkan country has been grappling with political instability since major anti-corruption protests in 2020.
Under the new rules, the current parliament will continue to work, while the main task of the caretaker government will be to organize the upcoming elections.
