SOFIA, Bulgaria
Bulgaria’s center-right GERB party emerged victorious in the weekend’s general elections but failed to win enough seats to form a government.
The party won just over 32 percent of votes, leaving it without an overall majority. The Socialist Party, which led the previous minority government, secured around 16 percent of the vote and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Party, which represents ethnic Turks, won just under 15 percent.
The Reformist Block, consisting of five political parties, won just under nine percent.
In the second general elections in as many years, an estimated 44 percent of Bulgaria’s seven million registered voters went to the polls on Sunday.
GERB, as the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party is known, must now form a coalition government to tackle the country’s faltering economic growth and banking crisis.
It will be the fifth government in the past two years. A record eight political parties are expected to enter the 240-seat parliament.
A caretaker government has been in place since August as the country struggles with political instability.
www.aa.com.tr/en
