The Parliament approved the resignation of the government of the centre-right GERB party, which was deposited on Wednesday. Out of 215 MPs who voted in the 240-seat Parliament, 209 voted “for”, 5 voted “against” and one abstained. The resignation follows massive street protests against high electricity bills and low incomes that have swept the country in the past days.
The President, Rosen Plevneliev, will consecutively hand the mandate for forming a new cabinet to the largest and second-largest party, after which he will chose a third one. However, the major political parties, including GERB, have already indicated that they will not make attempts to form a government. After the likely decline of mandate by three parties, Plevneliev will appoint an interim government, which will schedule early elections. Early elections could become a fact around the end of April or early May, which is just 2 months before the regular elections scheduled for early July.
The new government will most likely be coalitional, since no party has the potential to win the majority of votes at the early elections. According to polls prior to the protests in February, GERB has the support of 19% to 23% of the voters, while the second largest party in Parliament, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), has 22-23% support. The third most popular party, MRF (the liberal ethnic Turkish party), has support of around 7%.