Bulgaria is still operating under a caretaker government since inconclusive parliamentary elections on October 27. The GERB-UDF, led by Boyko Borisov, emerged victorious but with only 26% of the vote, it needed to strike a coalition agreement to form a government.

The October vote was Bulgaria’s seventh in three years, and the country now appears to be lurching towards another one next year that will extend a prolonged period of political instability that has seen governments come and go and undermined Bulgarians’ faith in their democratic institutions.

On Tuesday, Borisov threw in the towel on the attempts to strike a coalition agreement with the WCC-DB grouping, the second largest party in parliament.

“I no longer want to deal with this broken country,” Borisov said at a press conference, citing the apparent mess left by the WCC-DB when it was in power. “I will immediately return the mandate [to form a government] as soon as I receive it,” he continued, referring to the formal offer made by the president to the biggest party in parliament to form a government.

His attempts to stitch together a working government appear to have floundered on the rocks of a fractious political landscape in Bulgaria, which is also riven with personal animosity and distrust.

The failure of the talks between the two biggest parties also means that the lower house of parliament is still without a speaker. A number of candidates have been put forward to fill the role, but none have garnered enough support from the warring parties to get the job.