On the 24^th January 2023, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) returned Rumen Radev, the Bulgarian President, the mandate to form the new government, because it failed to form a new coalition. Under such circumstances, the Bulgarians seized the opportunity to have a new round of elections – the 5^th in the past two years.

Following the elections that took place on the 2^nd October 2022, Bulgarian politicians fruitlessly tried to form a coalition. None of the seven parties in the Parliament in Sofia managed to gather the necessary majority. “We realised that we would not be able to get the necessary support to form a new government”, said the leader of the BSP Kornelya Ninova.

On the 2^nd February 2023, the Bulgarian President, R. Radev signed a decree that announced the following elections would take place on the 2^nd April 2023, and, on the 3^rd February 2023, announced the dissolution of the Bulgarian Parliament. We have to highlight the fact that this new parliamentary round of elections will be followed by a round of local elections, on a different date in 2023. These local elections will also test the domination of the centre-right party GERB in the local administration.

During a TV interview she gave on the 22^nd January, the leader of the BSP, Kornelya Ninova stated that “the leaders of the other parties are finally realising that the parliamentary republic is in danger”. She referred to the ever aspiring political ambitions of the Bulgarian President, R. Radev.

By the end of 2022, GERB, the Movement for Rights and Liberties, and the BSP have cooperated to change the electoral code. On the 22^nd of January 2023, the President, R. Radev, confirmed that Galab Donev, his former advisor for social policies will extend his mandate as acting prime minister, until May 2023. This decision was perceived by the Bulgarian political environment as a decision that maintains the trend of the Bulgarian president’s rising influence and power, as he favours acting cabinets.

Furthermore, it looks like the Bulgarian President, R. Radev is suspected of having taken advantage of certain recent reports, including one made by the German publication, Die Welt, that say that Bulgaria sold weapons to Ukraine, using proxies. It is believed that the Bulgarian president’s main objective was to criticise the coalition that governed between December 2021 and August 2022, led by the former Bulgarian Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov Petkov.

“To supply any kinds of weapons to Ukraine is like trying to put out a fire using gasoline”, said R. Radev on the 21^st January 2023. His friendship with Kiril Petkov Petkov was cut short after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. The fact that R. Radev supports the Kremlin regime became more and more obvious lately, and there are many debates in this regard. For example, Twitter Bulgaria thoroughly analysed a question that went viral on the account of the Bulgarian President: “To whom does Crimea belong?”. In this context, the people on the social network alluded to one of R. Radev’s statements, in November 2022, when he said that “Crimea is a Russian territory.”

Taking into account the latest evolutions, it is important to see that the members of the “We Continue the Change”, and their former coalition partners from 2021-2022, “Democratic Bulgaria” are engaged in complex negotiations to form a coalition for the April elections. “This is the first step towards the unification of the forces of good that belong to all communities and democratic parties, and the people involved in different causes that support the idea of a prosperous Bulgaria” stated the former Bulgarian Prime-Minister, Kiril Petkov Petkov, on the 28^th January 2023. This party favours the West, NATO and the EU, and is a centre-left party, while Democratic Bulgaria is a centre-right party. Their opponents are getting closer to one another. By the end of 2022, GERB and its allies from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and their traditional BSP opponents united to change the electoral code.

On the 27^th January 2023, the same parties, and the pro-Kremlin parties, Bulgarian Rise (national conservative party) and Revival (ultranationalist party) voted against changing the domestic violence law, that Democratic Bulgaria (a three party alliance) submitted – an action condemned by the human rights groups from the country. Besides, it coincided with the murder of a woman, who was killed by her partner.

It became obvious that Bulgaria is going through a very difficult time since different ideologies keep on dividing the Parliament in Sofia. On the 1^st February 2023, when Bulgaria commemorated the victims of the communist era, when the MPs took a moment of silence, the members of both the BSP, the successor of the former communist governing party, and the Bulgarian Rise left Parliament Hall. On the same day, Bulgaria recognised the Holodomor, the famine between 1932 and 1933, from Soviet Ukraine, as a mass genocide, a stand saluted by the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. The pro-Russian political party, Bulgarian Rise voted against the motion, while the socialists abstained.

As a conclusion, we can say that the current Bulgarian Prime Minister, Galab Donev, will remain the head of the acting Bulgarian government, until the general elections on the 2^nd April 2023. The government crisis in Bulgaria has been endangering its Schengen accession, and the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. Political instability makes experts question the introduction of the euro, planned for 2024.