Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev handed over the second exploratory mandate for forming a government to the Premier-designate of “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria” (PP-DB) Nikolay Denkov.

"As President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, I am called to defend the Bulgarian state. I would like to state here that it is precisely because of this that it is inappropriate on my part to hand you a mandate and to entrust the fate of Bulgaria to the leaders of your party after the leaked recordings…., because of the planned purge in the services and state administration and the plan to interfere in the elections", said Rumen Radev.

"It is your constitutional right to use the cabinet-forming mandate, but for the sake of preserving the remnants of normality and trust in the political system, and for preserving Bulgaria's image before our European partners, I call on you to reconsider the appropriateness of this mandate, which, in my opinion, has already been discredited", President Radev added.

"Bulgaria needs a stable government. A government that will solve the people’s problems and that will decisively move Bulgaria's European path forward. Bulgaria also needs a stable parliament. Its most urgent task is to adopt the state budget on which salaries, pensions and capital expenditure depend", Premier-designate Nikolay Denkov told President Radev. In his words, the parliament has to complete a number of urgent tasks, including the Anticorruption Law, the amendments to the Penal Code, including changes related to road safety issues. According to Nikolay Denkov, negotiations with the other parliamentary forces will be held in the coming days. "I hope that our effort will be supported and that next week we will have a regular stable government", Nikolay Denkov went on to say.

Earlier, GERB-SDS's Premier-designate Mariya Gabriel returned to President Rumen Radev the first cabinet-forming mandate unfulfilled. GERB-SDS and PP-DB agreed on a rotating prime minister with the second term. However, an MP from the "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" coalition published a scandalous recording of a meeting of We Continue the Change. As a result, GERB froze negotiations with PP-DB.

• Radostin Vasilev shows remarks from alleged political haggling over the formation of a cabinet