Incumbent PM Yanev to lead Bulgaria to elections

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has reappointed incumbent caretaker premier Stefan Yanev to lead an interim administration until a new government is formed, the official state gazette has shown.

The European Union's poorest member state will hold its third parliamentary elections this year on November 14, after inconclusive polls in April and July failed to produce a government.

Radev, who is running for re-election in a presidential vote also set for November 14, dissolved parliament and re-appointed most of the interim ministers who took office in May after almost a decade of political dominance by former centre-right Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

The new interim government will have to submit a national plan to Brussels on how it plans to use more than 6 billion euros from the EU's coronavirus recovery fund and shield the country from an upsurge of new infections and the possible arrival of migrants from Afghanistan.

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What will happen next? 

The president will present the new government later on Thursday, when it takes office. Yanev's first interim Cabinet has been popular with some for revealing that the previous centre-right government of Borissov had spent billions of taxpayer money on infrastructure projects without proper procurement, among other shortcomings.

Two of its most popular members, Economy Minister Kiril Petkov and Finance Minister Assen Vassilev, will not be part of the new administration as they are expected to announce soon their own political party.

Radev appointed Valery Beltchev, a Harvard University graduate with a long track record in banking and public finance, as interim finance minister.

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