By Georgi Slavov
SOFIA (Rtrs) -Sixteen Bulgarian lawmakers lost their seats on Thursday after the Constitutional Court found they were wrongly elected during a partial recount of the October election.
The court looked into the election after a complaint by the nationalist Velichie Party, which initially missed the 4% threshold to enter parliament by just a few votes.
Velichie was awarded 10 seats after the recount, the election commission said in a televised meeting. The other six seats were allocated to four small parties.
A fragile ruling coalition led by the centre-right GERB Party lost five seats but hung on to a razor-thin majority with 121 seats in the 240-seat parliament.
The constitutional court rejected calls for a full recount in a statement on Thursday. Still, the partial recount from hundreds of polling stations added further uncertainty to Bulgaria’s unstable political scene, where for years fractured parties have failed to win majorities or form stable coalitions.
The October poll, which GERB won with about 26% of the vote, was the seventh election in four years. But it was not until January that Bulgaria’s parliament approved a cabinet led by Rosen Zhelyazkov, a former parliament speaker, ending months of coalition negotiations.
Bulgaria needs a period of stable, well-functioning government to accelerate the flow of European Union funds into its creaking infrastructure and nudge it towards adoption of the euro. Plans to join the euro zone have already been pushed back because of missed inflation targets. Accession is currently slated for January 1, 2026.
(Writing by Edward McAllisterEditing by Alexandra Hudson and Rod Nickel)
