Bulgaria's small ITN party gets mandate to form next government

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev gave the mandate to form a government on Monday to a small party that came sixth in last month's parliamentary vote, the latest attempt to build a stable coalition following an inconclusive election last month.

The party, There Is Such a People (ITN), appears unlikely to succeed where two larger parties - the centre-right GERB and the reformist We Continue the Change (PP) - failed. Failure by the anti-elite ITN to form a government would put Bulgaria on track for its seventh parliamentary election since 2021.

Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and one of its most corrupt states, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 helped topple a coalition led by GERB.

ITN, which won just 16 seats in the 240-seat assembly in the June 8 election, will have no time limit for attempting to broker a new government.

"We are extremely aware of what a serious crisis the country is in and what responsibility this third mandate carries," Toshko Yordanov, leader of the ITN parliamentary group said after receiving the mandate.

"We will hold talks with all parliamentary parties, including with independent deputies. The negotiation process will be extremely transparent, in front of everyone," he said.

June's election was triggered by the collapse in March of a coalition comprising GERB, which had held power for much of the previous 15 years, and the PP party.

GERB came first in the June vote, winning 68 seats, while the PP party secured 39. Though they are both broadly pro-EU and pro-market, they are dogged by personal rivalries and disagreements.

Bulgaria needs a period of stable, well-functioning government to accelerate the flow of EU funds into its creaking infrastructure and to nudge it towards joining the euro and fully participating in Europe's open-border Schengen area.

Plans to join the eurozone have already been pushed back twice because of missed inflation targets.

(Reporting by Stoyan Nenov in Sofia and Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade; Editing by Gareth Jones)