Meglena Kuneva, leader of "Bulgaria for Citizens Movement" , announced her resignation on Monday, a day after the early general elections, where her party failed to pass the 4% threshold and enter parliament.

"The elections took place in difficult, unhealthy environment. Beyond the purely legal breaches of rules for holding fair elections, there were no debates, where people can hear the politicians defending their plans and policies, clashing with rivals. This did not happen. Nor did we see free speech in the media,” Kuneva said at a special press conference on Monday.

Kuneva's deputies in the party have also resigned.

The former EU Commissioner stressed that her party was the first to come up with a public program for leading Bulgaria out of the social, economic and political crisis.

“And though we took every care to make it accessible to as many people as we can, there was nowhere to discuss it with our rivals,” Kuneva said.

"In my view there are no winners at this elections, we all suffered defeat because the hope for turning Bulgaria into a normal country is gone," she added.

“The bipolar status quo has been restored by the populist GERB and left-wing Socialist party. Bulgaria wasted its chance to form a government with a clear management program,” Kuneva said.

Bulgaria's center-right GERB party, which was forced to resign under public pressure in February, took a slight lead over the Socialists in the crucial early general elections.

The center-right GERB party - headed by former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov - and its main challenger the socialist BSP party were running neck-and-neck throughout the day, but at the end the recently ousted party took a lead of over 3%.

Support for GERB stood at 30.7%, while backing for the Socialists decreased to 27.6%, according to latest data.

Other parties expected to pass the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament are the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) - which represents Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish minority – and the ultra-nationalist Ataka.

They garnered 10.4% and 7.4% respectively.

The centrist Bulgaria for Citizens Movement, headed by former European Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, failed to overcome a threshold of at least 4% of the votes to gain seats in parliament (3.26%).

All data shows four parties entering the 42nd National Assembly, in a combination that – on the face of it – is more likely to result in a socialist-led coalition than in GERB being able to form a government.

A party needs to garner more than 43% of the actual votes to hold a parliamentary majority.

Meglena Kuneva is a former Minister of EU Affairs in the government of Simeon Saxe-Coburg and the NSMP party (2001-2005), the three-way coalition government (2005-2007), Bulgaria's Chief Negotiator in the EU accession talks in 2001-2007, and Bulgaria's first EU Commissioner in 2007-2009, when she was in charge of consumer protection.

Kuneva ran as independent candidate for President of the Republic of Bulgaria in the 2011 presidential elections.

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