The two allies in Bulgaria's outgoing government have abandoned plans to forge a new ruling coalition, tilting the country toward early elections.

"There will be no cabinet. We are not capable of reaching an agreement within the 43rn National Assembly [Parliament]," news website Mediapool.bg quotes the head of the biggest party's parliamentary faction, Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Tsvetanov, who is the deputy head of GERB, the party of outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has confirmed that, as talks fell through, the mandate handed out to the Reformist Bloc (RB) coalition will have to be returned.

For several days, he was involved in talks with RB leaders and the two chairs of the Patriotic Front, a nationalist coalition backing the outgoing cabinet, to form a new administration out of the current Parliament.

The RB was handed out a mandate by the President last week and, after days of mixed messages from GERB, was promised support for a new cabinet.

However, GERB also told RB leaders that they had to name their own Prime Minister if they were to use the mandate.

Earlier, reformists had put forward the names of outgoing Health Minister Petar Moskov and two representatives of RB parties, Nayden Zelenogorski and Rumen Hristov, as possible candidates to become Prime Minister.

They had also announced Borisov, his deputy Tomislav Donchev, and Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov would not hold any offices in a future administration.