Bulgaria looks to end impasse with Socialist-led cabinet

Bulgarian lawmakers will seek to end months of political uncertainty with a vote on a minority cabinet led by the Socialist Party, the previous government’s main opposition, which placed second in this month’s election. President Rosen Plevneliev signed a decree asking Parliament to vote on the Socialists’ nominee for prime minister, Plamen Oresharski, and his proposed cabinet, Plevneliev told reporters in Sofia Tuesday. Plevneliev issued a mandate, after center-right GERB party leader and former PM Boyko Borisov returned the first mandate to the head of state. Although GERB have the largest political group in Parliament, all other three parties in the house had stated they would not back a proposal by the former ruling party. Ex-Finance Minister Oresharski will need a majority of the 240-member assembly to endorse his list of ministers on Wednesday. The Socialists, with 84 seats, agreed to form a coalition with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a party that represents the country’s ethnic Turkish minority and has 36 deputies. Attack, a radical nationalist party with 23 lawmakers, said it supports no one.