Parliament voted that the first mandate to form a government with Mariya Gabriel of GERB as PM has not succeeded
![Parliament voted that the first mandate to form a government with Mariya Gabriel of GERB as PM has not succeeded](https://bnt.bg/f/news/b/327/c66426464374b9ff01c76f946bad024e.webp)
The Parliament on March 26 accepted the withdrawal of Mariya Gabriel from her candidacy for Prime Minister within the first exploratory mandate to form a government.
By 226 votes in favour, one abstention and none against, the Parliament voted to that the first mandate to seek to form a government with Mariya Gabriel as Prime Minister has failed.
This came after a statement by Gabriel withdrawing her declared fulfilment of the first exploratory mandate to form a government and declaring that she would not propose a cabinet structure and complement.
President Rumen Radev is set to hand a second exploratory mandate to form a government to the second largest parliamentary group - "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria".
On March 26, Parliament will vote on Mariya Gabriel's withdrawal of candidacy for Prime Minister
Mariya Gabriel withdraws her candidacy for Prime Minister
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At a news conference on Sunday, March 24, GERB-UDF's Prime Minister-designate, Maryia Gabriel, announced that she would withdraw her candidacy for Prime Minister and that her party is not going to participate in negotiations on the formation of a government when the President hands a mandate to the second largest group in Parliament, “We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria”.
In a televised statement on the Bulgarian National Television later on Sunday, outgoing Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov called on GERB leadership to sign an agreement with WCC-DB and form a government with Mariya Gabriel as Prime Minister and without any changes of the ministers from the Denkov cabinet.
After long talks between the power sharing partners GERB-UDF and WCC-DB, on March 19, Gabriel went to President Radev with a ready line-up for a cabinet. “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria”, at a special press conference later on that day, distanced themselves from the proposed cabinet line-up and said that the proposed ministers from their party had not agreed to be ministers