Petkov government loses no-confidence vote

On 22 June 2022 Bulgaria's parliament passed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's coalition government, the first successful such vote in the country's history. The populist There Is Such a People party had left the coalition, accusing Petkov of mismanaging the budget.

The first successful vote of no confidence against the cabinet

On 22 June 2022, Bulgaria's National Assembly voted 123 to 116 to remove Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's coalition government. The vote followed the withdrawal of the There Is Such a People party led by Slavi Trifonov, which had formed part of the governing arrangement since December 2021. Opposition parties criticised budget policies and disputes over North Macedonia's European Union accession process. Petkov accused entrenched political and economic interests of working against his anticorruption programme.

The coalition had also faced disputes involving rising energy costs, the war in Ukraine and Bulgaria's relations with Russia. Petkov's government had opposed a Russian demand for gas payments in rubles, and Gazprom suspended deliveries to Bulgaria in April 2022. That confrontation amplified concerns about energy-price volatility. Meanwhile, former prime minister Boyko Borisov and his GERB party supported the opposition campaign against Petkov.

The no-confidence decision did not immediately install a replacement. Bulgaria's constitution required President Rumen Radev to initiate further attempts at government formation; failure would lead to another election. The June defeat helped prolong a sequence of unstable parliaments and short-lived coalitions. In political competition, 123 votes were sufficient to terminate cabinet confidence, but that majority was not proof that an alternative durable governing coalition already existed. Petkov continued in a caretaker political transition while institutions followed constitutional procedures. The vote's most immediate consequence was the fall of a seven-month coalition, not a resolution of disputes over gas supply, judicial reform or EU enlargement.