The results from Sunday’s election, Bulgaria’s fifth in just two years, showed GERB and its small SDS ally winning a combined 26.6% of the vote, just ahead of the pro-Western reformist bloc led by We Continue the Change (PP) on 24.5%, while the pro-Russia Bulgarian nationalist Revival party had 14.4%.

The ethnic Turkish MRF was in fourth place with 13% and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), heir to the once powerful Communist Party, had 9%.

The outcome points to further lengthy coalition talks that are unlikely to produce a stable government due to personal antipathy among the leaders of the two main blocs, analysts say, possibly leading to a sixth election later this year.

Failure yet again to produce a functioning government could undermine Bulgaria’s hopes of joining the euro currency zone in the near term and of being able to effectively use European Union COVID-19 recovery aid.

The PP and its ally Democratic Bulgaria (DB) accuse GERB of presiding over rampant corruption in the EU’s poorest member state during their decade-long rule that ended in April 2021, something that Borissov denies.

For some voters, Borissov, a veteran of Bulgaria’s political scene, is seen as likely to provide a measure of stability amid soaring inflation and geopolitical concerns spurred by the Ukraine war. But PP/DB have ruled out a coalition with GERB.

Both Borissov and Kiril Petkov, the 42-year-old, Harvard-educated leader of PP, want Bulgaria, a NATO member albeit with close historic and cultural ties to Russia, to maintain its pro-Ukraine stance in the war.

For much of the past two years, Bulgaria has been governed by technocratic caretaker governments appointed by President Rumen Radev.

In coming weeks Radev will invite the leader of whichever party has won most votes, possibly Borissov, to engage in coalition talks with a view to forging a coalition government.