The politics of Bulgaria take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
A caretaker government, also known as a caretaker regime, is a temporary ad hoc government that performs some governmental duties and functions in a country until a regular government is elected or formed. Depending on specific practice, it consists of either randomly selected members of parliament or outgoing members until their dismissal.
The prime minister of Bulgaria is the head of government of Bulgaria. They are the leader of a political coalition in the Bulgarian parliament – known as the National Assembly of Bulgaria – and the leader of the cabinet. At times, the prime minister has been appointed by the President of Bulgaria.
The history of Bulgaria from 1990 to the present is the period of Bulgarian history that begins after the fall of Communism and the transition to a market economy.
Rumen Georgiev Radev is a Bulgarian politician and former major general who has been the president of Bulgaria since 22 January 2017.
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 4 April 2021 at the end of the term of National Assembly members elected in 2017. Parties in the governing coalition led by Boyko Borisov lost seats and no party leader was able to form a coalition government within the time limit. This triggered the July 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election.
Katerina Sakellaropoulou is a Greek judge who has been the president of Greece since 13 March 2020. She was elected by the Hellenic Parliament to succeed Prokopis Pavlopoulos on 22 January 2020. Prior to her election as president, Sakellaropoulou served as president of the Council of State, the highest administrative court of Greece. She is the country's first female president.
A rotation government or alternation government is one of the ways of forming of a government in a parliamentary state. It is a government that, during its term, will see the individual holding the post of prime minister switch, whether within the same political bloc or as part of a grand coalition. Israel has seen by far the most experience with such a governing arrangement. The government of Ireland is now in its second rotation agreement. Usually, this alternation is guided by constitutional convention with tactical resignation of the first officeholder to allow the second to form a new government. Israel, which established the rotation mechanism in 1984, codified it in 2020.
Snap parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 11 July 2021 after no party was able or willing to form a government following the April 2021 elections. The populist party There Is Such a People (ITN), led by musician and television host Slavi Trifonov, narrowly won the most seats over a coalition of the conservative GERB and Union of Democratic Forces parties. Four other parties won seats in the 240-member Parliament as well.
Stefan Dinchev Yanev is a retired Bulgarian brigade general and politician who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2021, leading a caretaker government. A political independent, he also served as Minister of Defence in 2017 and from 2021 to 2022. Yanev later founded the Bulgarian Rise party and served as Member of the National Assembly from 2022 to 2023.
General elections were held in Bulgaria on 14 November 2021 to elect both the President and the National Assembly. They were the country's third parliamentary elections in 2021, with no party able to form a government after the elections in April and July. A second round of the presidential elections were held on 21 November 2021 as no candidate was able to receive a majority of the vote in the first round.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 2 October 2022 to elect members of the 48th National Assembly. The snap election was called after the fall of the Petkov Government, a four-party coalition, in June 2022. This was the fourth parliamentary election since 2021, an unprecedented situation in Bulgarian history, the previous elections being the April, July, and November 2021 elections.
We Continue the Change, sometimes translated as Change Continues, is a centrist, anti-corruption political party and formerly an electoral alliance in Bulgaria led by Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev, two former caretaker ministers. It was founded ahead of the November 2021 election. The party was officially registered on 15 April.
Kiril Petkov Petkov is a Bulgarian politician, economist, and entrepreneur, who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria from December 2021 to August 2022. He is the co-leader of We Continue the Change, a political party he co-founded with Asen Vasilev.
Galab Spasov Donev is a Bulgarian politician who served as the caretaker Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 2 August 2022 to 6 June 2023. He is the longest-serving caretaker prime minister in Bulgaria's history to date.
The Donev government was the 100th Cabinet of Bulgaria. It took office on 2 August 2022, after being nominated by President Rumen Radev to solve the political crisis that led to the fall of the Petkov Government and the calling of a snap election for October 2. It is a caretaker government chaired by prime minister Galab Donev.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 2 April 2023 to elect members of the National Assembly. These were initially scheduled to be held before November 2026; however, as no government was approved by the 48th Parliament, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev announced in January 2023 that he would call a snap election.
The Bulgarian political crisis is a period of instability in Bulgaria, which has seen the country face seven parliamentary elections over four years: April 2021, July 2021, November 2021, October 2022, April 2023, June 2024 and October 2024.
The Denkov Government is the 102nd cabinet of Bulgaria. It was approved by the parliament on 6 June 2023, and is a majority coalition of GERB and PP–DB. Per the coalition agreement, it is set to be a rotation government, where PP–DB's Nikolai Denkov would start with the premiership, with GERB's Mariya Gabriel serving as deputy prime minister, and after nine months, the two would switch positions. Per the agreement, Denkov and his cabinet resigned on 6 March 2024 in preparation for Gabriel to form her cabinet, although the Denkov government stayed on in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed.
