Bulgarian government resigns after presidential election failure

The Bulgarian prime minister on Monday announced the resignation of his cabinet after his party's candidate failed to win the second round of the country's presidential elections.


Socialist Party-supported independent candidate Rumen Radev beat center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party candidate Tsetska Tsacheva on Sunday.

A government statement said that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov had told members of parliament his government would continue in their positions until a new cabinet was formed.

Borisov, who has been PM since 2009 except for a one-and-a-half year interval, thus lived up to a promise he made during the campaign _ in which he said he would resign if GERB's Tsetska Tsacheva did not win the election.

Tsacheva, chair of the National Assembly, lost the second round with 36.17 percent of the vote to Radev, who secured 59.35 percent, according to Bulgaria's Central Election Commission with 99.3 percent of the votes counted.

Borisov warned Sunday that his government would tender a bloc resignation as exit polls pointed to a win for Radev, a former air force commander with no political experience.

"The results showed that the governing coalition now has no majority and could not even pass the budget," the PM said Sunday.
 EFE-EPA
14/11/16
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