SOFIA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria's largest parliamentary force, There Is Such a People (ITN) party, on Wednesday officially abandoned efforts to form a government, after failing to get a simple majority.
Plamen Nikolov, the ITN prime minister nominee, has asked to withdraw his candidacy, saying that he would not propose a government, speaker of the National Assembly Iva Miteva said.
The move came after the ITN won snap elections on July 11, yet with only 65 seats in the 240-member chamber. It needed to gather support from other parties in the parliament to form a simple majority.
The task of forming a government now goes to the second-largest force in the newly-elected parliament, the coalition of the conservative-populist GERB party and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), which won 63 seats.
Under the constitution, if the second-largest parliamentary group failed to form a government and a minor group failed also, the president shall schedule new parliamentary elections.
The snap elections were held after the GERB-UDF coalition, which had won the general election in April this year, failed to form a government. Enditem
