/ БТА
President Rumen Radev handed the third and last cabinet-forming mandate to BSP for Bulgaria on Friday after the largest parliamentary group, There Is Such a People (TISP), unsuccessfully completed their mandate and the second largest parliamentary group, GERB-UDF, immediately declined the second mandate. Unlike the first two, the third parliamentary group does not have to meet a deadline for picking a prime minister designate, but once it does the designate will have a week to fulfil the mandate or decline it. Before that, BSP for Bulgaria would like to consult Rise Up BG!, There Is Such a People, and Democratic Bulgaria.

"It is up to them to appear at these consultations," Ninova said, adding that the idea is to have the parties state their positions "publicly, in front of the cameras, at live-streamed meetings." She would like the parties "at least to show some common sense and form a majority that would speed up the revision of the budget by cutting the time between the first and second reading", considering that motions can be tabled by September 7 before the bill comes up for a second reading.

"We have set ourselves two objectives: to form a regular cabinet which could tackle the crises and to assemble a majority to press ahead with changing the GERB governance model," the BSP leader also said.

"We can choose between declining the mandate right away or keeping it until we find an answer to the most pressing issues. We take the second option," Ninova pointed out, arguing that "if we decline the mandate, we will leave the pensioners without a pension increase and police, physicians and military without adequate financing."
NOVA