site.btaUPDATED TISP Leader Trifonov Says Party Will Return to President Exploratory Mandate Unfulfilled

"Tomorrow, Monday, we will return the third [exploratory government-forming] mandate to the President. I am sure that the Bulgarian voter is wise and will do the right thing in the upcoming elections," There Is Such a People (TISP) leader Slavi Trifonov wrote on Facebook Sunday after his party failed to get support from GERB-UDF on Saturday for forming a regular cabinet.

"You all saw what happened in the last week. It happened literally before your eyes. The President handed the third [and last] exploratory mandate to TISP and we have fully openly and responsibly tried to fulfill it. We met with all the political parties and independent members of the 50th National Assembly in front of you. It became clear from these discussions that we and five political entities have is a complete overlap of priorities, tasks, goals and the ways of their implementation," Trifonov said, listing the entities as the independent MPs around Nikolay Markov, the independent deputies from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms around Dzhevdet Chakarov, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria and GERB. "However, despite the lack of differences, despite their constant talking about responsibility, statehood and awareness of the simple fact that it is better to have a regular cabinet and not the country to go to another round of early elections, despite this - two of these political structures refused to support us. Given that we have no differences, this act seems completely foolish and irresponsible. And it is - stupid and irresponsible. These political entities are CC-DB and GERB," he said.

"CC-DB hid behind its leadership and refused to give a clear answer. Why? Probably because of the political short-sightedness of one partner in their coalition, which continues to act as if it is self-sufficient. And GERB, despite the reason and practicality of the experts in this party, has not managed to escape the dependencies of [its leader] Boyko Borissov. Let me remind you that the only parliamentary group that wanted immediate elections was the MRF group led by Delyan Peevski. Well, Boyko Borissov fulfilled Delyan Peevski's wish and sent the country to another round of snap elections. I  am sure he will take full political responsibility for this," Trifonov wrote in his post.

On Saturday GERB-UDF confirmed that they would not support the formation of a regular government on the third mandate that President Rumen Radev handed to TISP. After almost three hours of talks, the largest political force [GERB] said that this Parliament was too fragmented and a possible majority would be unstable.

President Radev's Press Secretariat said later in the day that the head of State will receive TISP's representatives at noon on Monday.