GERB's candidate for prime minister, Mariya Gabriel, today received an exploratory mandate from President Rumen Radev to form a government. 

She announced that she would keep the cabinet mandate, but that waiting for the constitutional seven-day deadline to return the mandate was unacceptable to her. She added that the negotiations between GERB-SDS and We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) would continue for another 24 hours, as the PP-DB had asked for more time for talks. The upcoming 24-hour negotiating marathon will include the signing of a coalition agreement and the definition of the composition of the government. 

GERB later officially announced that negotiations with the PP-DB would end at noon on March 19, when GERB's candidate for prime minister, Mariya Gabriel, would meet President Rumen Radev on Tuesday to announce a final decision.

Ms Gabriel and the outgoing PP-DB prime minister, Nikolai Denkov, went together to the president's office. Commenting on an unofficial list of ministers that had been leaked to the media, Mr Denkov said that the PP-DB had only seen the list today and that it contained names that were unacceptable to the PP-DB. 

According to the leaked document, among the ministers to be replaced was Defence Minister Todor Tagarev, who was replaced by Hristo Gadzhev (GERB). At the same time, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev (co-leader of the PP) retains his seat.