The frontrunner in Bulgaria’s October election said on Thursday he was ready to hold talks with other parties after the vote, including to discuss securing cross-party support for legislation to ensure political stability. Boiko Borisov, the leader of the centre-right GERB party, is tipped to win the Oct. 5 poll, but may fall short of a majority, which risks dragging the Balkan state into more political turmoil and hurting its growth prospects. In the wake of the country’s worst financial crisis since the 1990s, Borisov also said Bulgaria’s Central Bank Governor Ivan Iskrov should resign the day after the election for his handling of troubled lender Corporate Commercial Bank. Bulgaria is gearing up for its third election in two years, after the Socialist-led government, whose one year in office was overshadowed by massive anti-graft protests, floods and a banking crisis, resigned in July.
The country is currently run by a caretaker administration, and Borisov warned Bulgarians may have to go to the polls again at the start of 2015 if no party managed to form a government.
Bulgaria is the European Union’s poorest state and whoever wins in October faces a raft of challenges, including reviving a sluggish economy, cleaning up corruption, plugging a gaping deficit in the energy sector and unfreezing blocked EU funds.
“A minority government, when stability is needed, is risky for the country,” Borisov told Reuters in an interview.
“I hope that we can close the issue with the elections on Oct.5. We should lock ourselves inside parliament until we can come up with a decision. People deserve it … even if the parties’ reputations are hurt,” he said.
“We are already talking about a salvation government. If the country cannot be saved now, from January onwards after new elections there will be nothing left to save”.
Borisov favours forming a centre-right coalition. But he also expressed concerns that talks with the right-wing group of parties might prove difficult given their list of demands, including that he should not be the next prime minister.
Full Article: Index – Reuters: Bulgaria election frontrunner open to talks with other parties – Standart.