There Is Such A People party wins snap parliamentary elections in Bulgaria

Slavi Trifonov

SOFIA, July 15 (NNN-Xinhua) — The recently established There Is Such A People party has won the snap parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, ending the 12-year dominance of the GERB party, according to final results announced on Thursday.

There Is Such A People, which was founded in 2019 by the TV host and singer Slavi Trifonov, received 24.08 percent of the votes at the elections on Sunday, and will have 65 seats in the 240-member National Assembly, the Central Election Commission said.

GERB, together with its partner Union of Democratic Forces, came second with 23.51 percent of the votes and 63 seats, followed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party coalition, the Democratic Bulgaria coalition, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and “Rise Up! Thugs Out!” coalition.

The newly-elected National Assembly is expected to hold its first sitting within the next three weeks following Bulgarian parliamentary practice.

According to the Bulgarian constitution, the country’s president shall appoint a prime minister-designate nominated by the party holding the highest number of seats in the National Assembly to form a government, which needs a simple majority of the present legislators to be approved.

The same six contenders entered the parliament after the previous elections, which were held on April 4 this year. However, they failed to form a government, so on May 11 President Rumen Radev dissolved the National Assembly and appointed a caretaker government.