“I am handing back the folder with the unfulfilled mandate for the formation of a government,” said academician Nikolai Denkov who was nominated for prime minister by We Continue the Change party, as he returned the mandate to President Rumen Radev.

• We Continue the Change and GERB-SDS prepared to support Democratic Bulgaria for third mandate, on condition

“I believe that it was worth the effort – the discussion, the question where Bulgaria is going is not academic, it is a question of the future of our children,” Nikolai Denkov said.

“Your like-minded coalition partners from Democratic Bulgaria said that the only way a government can be formed on the third mandate is if agreement is reached between GERB and you, so I am asking you to discuss this matter of utmost importance,” Rumen Radev responded. He expressed the hope that the negotiations on forming a government will not shift the focus away from the legislative work of the National Assembly and the adoption of the laws under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, the anti-corruption law and the law on the accountability of the prosecutor general, which are connected with the country’s entry into the Schengen area. 

Over the weekend, Democratic Bulgaria co-chairman Hristo Ivanov commented the option of the third mandate being given to Democratic Bulgarian saying: “For the country to exit the political crisis, and to do it in a stable way, there needs to be some kind of accord between We Continue the Change and GERB.” On 9 January, he said in Plovdiv that whoever receives the third mandate for the formation of a government will have to take as a basis the formula applied during the negotiations of the first two mandates – instead of discussing a coalition that govern rule the country, to discuss targets of governance. He explained that they would support a government “only if there are clear commitments to a constitutional reform of the prosecutor’s office, to the fight against corruption and to restricting Russia’s influence in the country.”