[5] President Rumen Radev granted the first negotiation mandate to the largest party GERB-SDS on 15 January,[6] which formed a minority government alongside BSP and ITN, with support from APS (Dogan).
The far-right Revival (VAZ) and the populist There is Such a People (ITN) made gains, with the latter re-entering the Assembly after it failed to reach the electoral threshold in 2022.
[29] Grancharova-Kozhareva was granted ten days to form a proposal for the next caretaker government to be appointed on 20 August, and the upcoming next parliamentary elections were scheduled for 20 October 2024.
[30] Grancharova-Kozhareva made the controversial decision to propose that the incumbent minister of the interior, Kalin Stoyanov, should remain in his role, but this was opposed by President Radev.
[31] Following the rejection of Grancharova-Kozhareva, Radev re-appointed Dimitar Glavchev as the caretaker prime minister,[32] and his government proposal was sworn in on 27 August, and the elections were set for the 27 October.
It was reported that despite suggesting they could run, Volt, Bulgarian National Union and VMRO did not submit their lists in time to partake in the elections.
[54] Ten days prior to the election, it was reported that 1.2 million BGN (US$680k) was spent on advertising in the media, with ITN spending the most, DPS–Peevski second most, and BPS–OL third.
[55] The spending of each electoral group which won seats is as follows:[56] The following list present the official campaign slogans and websites of parties that contested the election: The opinion poll results below were recalculated from the original data by excluding undecided and non-voters.
[61] The interior minister, Atanas Ilkov, told a parliamentary hearing that he had received two alerts of vote buying by 25 September.
[65] On 2 October, the lead candidate of DPS–Dogan in Shumen, Dzheyhan Ibryamov, was arrested by the Prosecutors Office on the charge of attempting to buy vote and influence peddling.
[66] Following a request by the Prosecutors Office, the CEC and Chairwoman of the National Assembly, Raya Nazaryan, agreed to lift Ibryamov's immunity as a candidate in the elections.
[68] The arrest and criminal prosecution of Ibryamov provoked negative reactions from key DPS–Dogan figures, with the coalition de facto leader, Dzhevdet Chakarov, calling for the cancellation of the upcoming elections.
[69] In identified polling stations with a risk of high levels of controlled or bought votes, GERB and DPS–Peevski were the leading parties.
[70] According to the Institute for the Development of the Public Environment, there were 827 polling stations with this risk, and bTV reported some voters in Blagoevgrad did not deny that there was vote buying occurring.
[71] The coordinator of the 'You Count' organisation, which asks voters to report election misconduct, claimed that there were entire municipalities at risk of high levels of bought and controlled votes.
[72] An investigation was released on the state broadcaster, BNT, claimed to show that discrepancies of up to 100 votes in one electoral district, as well as other malpractices elsewhere.
[73] The Second Glavchev caretaker government, in its official report, stated that they believe that the elections had taken place in a free and fair environment, and cited positive comments made by international electoral observers.
[4] The official start of the process for exploring the first negotiation mandate in order to form a new government, awaited a prior election of the speaker for the 51st National Assembly.
[9] The election of a speaker for the 51st National Assembly is required before it can begin its work, which include conducting upcoming votes on potential government formation proposals.
The Bulgarian President will only start the process of handing out the exploring government forming mandates, once a speaker of the Parliament has been elected.
[105] PP–DB, which finished second, called for a cordon sanitaire around DPS–Peevski, and urged all parties to sign an agreement to this effect, which would also include a commitment to support anti-corruption legislation and judicial reform.
The meeting led to a joint declaration, where they came to consensus around building a "stable, pro-European majority", and further rounds of negotiations focusing on policy were scheduled.
[143] During the negotiations, the parliament was asked by the caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev to approve the signing of a security cooperation agreement with Ukraine.
[157] On 13 January, APS announced that their parliamentary group had received a mandate from their leadership structure to continue negotiations and support regular government.
Unofficial sources from APS elaborated they were however not ready to approve the offer that they had received, which saw them support the government and there were no guarantees for a cordon sanitaire surrounding the influence of DPS–NN (Peevski).
[8] The National Assembly approved the proposed GERB-ITN-BSP government and inaugurated its 19 ministers (11 from GERB, four from ITN, and four from BSP) in a vote on 16 January.
[166] The conduct of the election had allegations of mass vote buying and voter manipulation, leading civil society organisations to call for the annulment of the results.
[167] President Rumen Radev noted the large amount of evidence supporting allegations of mass vote buying and called on the Ministry of Interior to reveal which parties were most complicit in the practice.
[163] Multiple parties also announced they would collect signatures to send a partial annulment case to the Constitutional Court, which requires the support of 48 MPs.
An appointed panel of 18 experts was granted a deadline on 10 January 2025 to investigate all complaints and conduct an independent audit of the election results, including a recount of all votes cast at 1777 polling stations.