Bulgarian government formally resigns

Bulgaria’s centre-right government formally resigned Wednesday, three days after Prime Minister Boyko Borisov threw in the towel following a disastrous presidential election.

“The election on Sunday showed clearly that society wants change. The power coming from the people has to return to the people,” Borisov told parliament in Sofia.

Borisov’s candidate for the largely ceremonial post of president was soundly beaten by Rumen Radev, a former air force commander backed by the opposition Socialists.

Radev, 53, who has no previous political experience, is also seen as more sympathetic to Russia, which has close historial and economic ties to EU and NATO member Bulgaria.

Outgoing President Rosen Pleneviev was due Thursday to initiate discussions among Bulgaria’s political parties to form a new government.

These efforts were widely expected to fail, meaning that an interim technocrat government will likely run the country until the next legislative elections.

These elections are not expected until March at the earliest, and could well see Borisov’s GERB party return as the largest party, but fall short of a majority again, polls show.

Borisov, 57, a burly former bodyguard and police chief, resigned as premier once before in February 2013 only to return as prime minister in November 2014.

The south-eastern European country is the poorest in the European Union and Brussels has long taken it to task over slow progress tackling rampant corruption.