The leader of There Is Such a People, Slavi Trifonov, announced today that his party will be taking on the responsibility of governing Bulgaria alone, as the 'protest' parties lack the necessary majority. Using the TV channel 7/8 as a platform, he thanked voters for their support.

Trifonov noted that “coalition” has become a “dirty word” over the past few years and reiterated that There Is Such a People will not be forming a coalition with GERB, BSP or MRF. He also noted that the so-called protest parties do not have the requisite majority of 121 seats to form a stable cabinet.

“In that case, There Is Such a People will not form a coalition with any party and will instead take on the sole responsibility of forming a cabinet,” Slavi Trifonov said.

“There Is Such a People will accept a mandate to form a cabinet and will present parliament with its own structure and nominees for the Council of Ministers,” Trifonov said. The government envisioned by There Is Such a People (TISP) is composed of experts in various fields and will identify concrete priorities with the shortest possible timelines, according to the leader of TISP.

He said that, driven by a desire to ensure continuity, his party suggested that three successful ministers from the interim cabinet be among the nominees - Kiril Petkov, Assen Vassilev and Prof Nikolay Denkov. However, all three turned down the opportunity.

Trifonov's party intends to nominate Nikolay Vassilev as prime minister, Prof Nikolay Radulov as vice-PM and minister of the interior, and diplomat Radi Naydenov as vice-PM and minister of foreign affairs.

Among the cabinet's top priorities outlined by the leader of TISP are building enough kindergartens to meet demand, building a brand-new children's hospital, purchasing helicopters for medical and rescue purposes, signing concession agreements for and completing all remaining highways. Also on the list: purchasing up to one million tablets and laptops for all students and teachers and providing the necessary software, as well as launching the privatisation of the Bulgarian Development Bank.

Another priority pointed out by Trifonov was drastically improving transparency of public procurement procedures - rooting out the bad practices of spending billions of Bulgarian levs without holding competitions for assigning contracts, of paying billions to contractors in advance, of presenting repair works as an emergency in order to skirt the Public Procurement Act.

The priorities listed by the leader of TISP also include layoffs in the administration ranks and introducing digitalisation for more services; reforming the electoral system, introducing majority voting, machine balloting and a party subsidy of one lev per seat won.