🇧🇬 Bulgarian elections megathread (next up: European and National Parliament 09 June 2024)

[Beagle]

Sofia Municipal Council update:

PP-DB - 23
GERB - 14
BSP - 9
Vazrazhdane - 8
'Old Right' list - 3
ITN - 3
VMRO - 1

GERB are grabbing the last seat at the moment, it can change with the last trickle of votes still outstanding and during the mandatory retabulation. If all parties fulfill their pre-election promises, the only option for a 31-seat majority is PP-DB & BSP, since Boris Bonev has sworn numerous times that he and Save Sofia people will never, under any circumstances, accept any partnership with GERB. Hypothetically, Save Sofia can split-off and there could be a 'right-wing' majority of the 14 remaining PP-DB councilors, GERB and the 'Old Right' list. Doubt that the mayor-elect (assuming Terziev wins, of course) will allow that, though. 

Gridlock is the natural state of Bulgarian politics, but even by the current standards, the parties took the stalemate to the brink of a never-before-applied arcane provision in the relevant law: when the municipal council fails to meet for three months, it gets automatically dissolved and a snap election is held.

As mentioned above, the expectation was that PP-DB-SS would work with BSP for a working majority. However, within 2 weeks of the election, the re-elected district mayor and the oblast governor (both of whom belong to the DB 'Old Right' faction) took steps to dismantle the prominent monument to the Soviet army in the Sofia city center, which was seen a long time bugbear of the SDS/DSB/DB hardcore vote. This produced howls of outrage from BSP and Vazrazhdane (although their attempts at forming a human chain and other protests fizzled out) and the BSP municipal council grouping outright refused to work in any form with PP-DB-SS. On the other hand, the SS component of PP-DB outright refused to entertain any form of cooperation with GERB. Vazrazhdane and ITN, as is their wont, also refused to do... anything, really.

As a result, the newly elected Sofia Municipal Council failed to elect its chairman since the first 7 (private) votes yielded the exact same straight party line result (GERB refused to participate in the procedure out of spite). Even an agreement brokered by the Old Right faction, in which a temporary chairman from PP-DB-SS would be elected by them, ITN, VMRO and some Vazrazhdane splinters* failed when ITN pulled out at the last minute.

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Keeping with a long-established tradition of the Bulgarian nationalist parties, the Vazrazhdane group suffered its first breakaway even before the oath was taken and by now more than half of their grouping are no longer taking orders from the leadership

Only today, 9 February, 2 months and 25 days after the first sitting of the municipal council did a temporary chair from PP-DB-SS get elected, with only ITN, the rump Vazrazhdane and a handful of BSP/GERB holdouts voting against. It seems that despite some posturing, nobody was really eager to test the uncharted legal territory whether or not a municipal council is meeting when it cannot even elect its chairman, without whom it is impossible to move on to any other business.

BSP leader Ninova is threatening the Sofia leadership with expulsion, since they went against party orders in voting alongside PP-DB-SS and GERB.

Sofia Mayor update: Defeated BSP mayoral candidate Grigorova* has appealed the election results in court and, while the count currently shows that Terziev, the PP-DB-SS mayor, has been denied significantly more valid votes than Grigorova has, the number of discrepancies and the votes having been stored haphazardly, make it not inconceivable that snap Sofia mayor elections may be ordered.

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who has effectively departed the BSP grouping in the meantime

Other local updates: The live video feed of the counting process had the (un?)intended consequence that a number of elections will have to be re-run, but the court system is still sorting out which ones exactly. In general, Bulgarian courts have been rather reticent to order new elections, even where there are deep and obvious flaws in voting and counting, but in some cases the discrepancies are rather egregious, so at least two oblast-cities are expected to have re-runs of their municipal council elections. As to mayors, GERB have challenged the elections of a number of PP-DB-ers on procedural grounds, but the lawyers have only begun their work.


Other other updates: As stated numerous times, I have no particular desire to discuss non-electoral news - and I would get quite depressed if I did cover the farmers protests, the energy sector protests or the idiotic things that the non-coalition is doing to keep inflation under the threshold needed to adopt the Euro at the beginning of 2025.

However some political happenings that may have direct electoral consequences need mentioning:

- GERB-DPS and PP-DB are currently embroiled in a dispute about the upcoming rotation, where PP-DB have reneged on the original non-coalition condition that the current PM Denkov (PP) shall step down and become deputy PM and Education minister under PM Maria Gabriel (GERB). The current demand is that Denkov should replace Gabriel in her position as Foreign minister, as well as becoming deputy PM when the rotation happens in about a month's time. Considering that a number of ministers will also be replaced - presumably by non-palatable GERB-ers, I consider it more likely than not that PP-DB will pull the plug on the rotation agreement. With the 2023 constitutional changes now in effect, GERB-DPS are feeling quite comfortable about the prospect of a caretaker government which will now be outside of President Radev's hands and early parliamentary elections, maybe together with the Euros, seem likelier than not.

- The DPS component of the GERB-DPS coalition unceremoniously dumped its official chairman and 2021 Presidential candidate Karadyi upon orders by honorary chairman and effective leader Ahmed Dogan. It was rumored that Karadayi's departure was orchestrated because of his fairly evident support for Kılıçdaroğlu in the Turkish Presidential election earlier. However, in a recent visit, the current Erdoğan FM made a point of meeting Karadyi individually and separately from the present DPS leadership.

The reasons may be more prosaic - Karadayi's successor as (co*-)chairman Delyan Peevski provided Dogan with an urgent cash infusion when Dogan's electric powerplant was hit with a record fine recently.

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Peevski was expected to become the sole chairman, however faced with an apparent revolt at the prospect of an ethnic Bulgarian leading the party of the Turkish minority, Dogan suddenly announced the co-chairmanship scheme

- As to the Euros themselves (which should be next on the electoral calendar), you would be hard pressed to know that they are happening in less than 4 months time. GERB and BSP are expected to have a whole-scale cleanout of their MEPs (and suffer slight (GERB) or significant (BSP) losses in their number), but nothing has leaked out so far. PP-DB have a proposed joint list out, but DB are currently pondering if they should not strike out on their own, given that they have recently overtaken PP in polls where the two entities are listed separately. And ITN are apparently strongly considering giving the VMRO incumbent and general gadfly Dzhambazki another lease of life in Brussels.
 

[Beagle]

Considering that a number of ministers will also be replaced - presumably by non-palatable GERB-ers, I consider it more likely than not that PP-DB will pull the plug on the rotation agreement. With the 2023 constitutional changes now in effect, GERB-DPS are feeling quite comfortable about the prospect of a caretaker government which will now be outside of President Radev's hands and early parliamentary elections, maybe together with the Euros, seem likelier than not.

If you have been following this thread for a while, you will have noticed that my predictions seldom hit the mark. Not this time, though*. Contrary to what the vast majority of pundits, observers and general all-knowers proclaimed for months - who were all convinced that 'the Embassy' would pull the required number of strings to ensure the rotation takes place - it seems that we are heading for (yet another) snap election, presumably at the same time as the EU parliament.

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Although in this case I rather wish I had been wrong, as the assembly is presently looking as a much better scenario than upcoming alternatives

The particular reasons barely seem worth mentioning - feel free to ask, but in general the a bunch of loathsome characters doing loathsome things to other loathsome characters description of Bulgarian politics on the first page of this thread will suffice.

We are heading into uncharted waters constitutionally, as under the amendments adopted in late 2023, parliament shall no longer be dissolved and the president no longer has free choice of caretaker PMs and ministers. Instead, the caretaker PM needs to be selected from a very short list of public officials - who at present are almost all GERB appointees - and then the PM-designate will select his or her own choice of ministers.

Given the general tomfoolery, it is not impossible that all the officials on the list will decline to serve, in which case nobody has the faintest clue what is supposed to happen. However, chances are that one of the GERB-ers will in fact be appointed. The other potential issue is that DPS would very much like the two elections to be held on separate dates - their constituents in Turkey are not allowed to vote in the Euro elections and, given that they have extensive 'donor vote' systems in place, a 2-in-1 election can throw a wrench in their machine. Given the number of witting and unwitting helpers DPS has, it is possible that the parliamentary election is held on either 02 June or 16 June, taxpayers be damned.

As a very rough state-of-play, the broad consensus is that GERB -DPS will score gains, though not in absolute terms, but relatively. Turnout is expected to be significantly lower, so their steady support base should yield proportionally higher results. As to PP-DB, at least 1 in 5 of their voters in the last election will not repeat, possibly more. Vazrazhdane are also expected to lose ground compared to 2023 after the wave of departures/expulsions which followed the local elections, even if only marginally. BSP were on the up, but the locals empowered the opposition to Ninova to seek her ouster yet again. It is quite likely that the broad left will - again - have two lists to choose from in both the Euro and the Bulgarian elections - the Ninova one carrying the BSP brand and the dissident list, which will carry the BSP substance. And, as previously mentioned, the BSP brand has always won this battle in the past. ITN will again be teetering on the threshold, but probably above it, according to pollsters. As to the long-awaited-President-Radev-ite party - many people expected it to launch on the date of the Bulgarian national holiday, 3 March, from the kernel of the movement which Radev headed to preserve that day as the national holiday against the PP-DB proposal to change it to a different date*. However, Radev procrastinated yet again, leaving a rather short window of opportunity if he is to endorse a list in time for the election.

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* having 3 March as the biggest national holiday is seen by some as a servile sop to Russia, as this is the date of the Russo-Ottoman armistice which brought about the liberation of Bulgaria, but:
- had absolutely no input by Bulgarians in its contents and little in the war which brought it about
- never actually produced any effect

  

I am trying to gauge if there is any interest in discussing other, ostensibly non-political elections - the chairmanship of the Bulgarian Football Union which was just held, as well as the election of the next Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox church, which will be held after the parliamentary election. Unsurprisingly, these elections have turned into proxy political fights with significant implications. Post if you are interested in one or both, but if it is just one or two people, I probably will find other ways to occupy my time.

[Beagle]

Well, I am procrastinating on a work task and also yesterday was the filing deadline for the 2-in-1 election, so I guess an effortpost update is in order.

I am interested in both, but especially in the former  because it reminds me of something I have been wondering for a while - what's up with Ludogorets? An oligarch club suddenly becoming a juggernaut is not shocking for a country like Bulgaria, but the scale of it seems truly unique.

There is a saying that every Bulgarian believes themselves supremely competent in 2 topics: politics and football. You can gauge my competence in politics in this thread; as to the football, given the resounding lack of interest, I will be brief:

Dimitar Berbatov, by far the biggest Bulgarian football star of the 21st century, ran for the chairmanship of the football union for a second time, after being beaten in a farcical sham election back in 2022. He was supported by a number of former football stars, most of the historically prominent clubs, some GERB and PP-DB politicians and - by Assad margins - by the fans. However, the status quo (mostly represented by DPS politicians, but with GERB and BSP participation too) won the chairmanship election resoundingly, running the most arrogant, the most incompetent and stupidest person you can imagine. The ex-footballer chosen for the job had most recently come in the limelight when, in his capacity as national team overseer, he pledged to never allow a player "with a different passport and different skin color" to play in the national side. I choose to remember him by another quote, though, which can serve as an epitaph motto for a lot of Bulgarian political parties.

We are working really well, but people do not see that because they concentrate too much on the results we get

Ludgorets is a long, long story. It will have to suffice that for most of their dominance, the TV rights for the entire Bulgarian football league were held by the Ludogorets owner.


Developments:

Government: as expected, a GERB official (Glavchev - chairman of parliament for 6 months back in 2017, forced out as part of GERB faction wars and/or a token gesture of goodwill towards BSP) took the caretaker PM-ship. The government is shaped by a weird clandestine powersharing arrangement, involving GERB-DPS, president Radev and other parts of Bulgarian oligarchy, but it led to a very unseemly dismissal of the designated Foreign minister after just 4 days in the job and a pathetic search for a replacement, which actually ended up with Glavchev ostensibly combining the PM and FM positions, but in practice with Radev's people taking over.

EU Parliament election - as expected, the EU election has been entirely subsumed by the national one. More than 2/3rds of the likeliest MEPs after the election are also running for the national parliament as well, with most expected to choose Brussels if elected, but at least in DPS there will be people who will stay home. In predicted order:

GERB-SDS - EPP - (2019 - 31%, 6 MEPs; 2014 - 30%, 6 MEPs):
Running much of the same slate as last time, they somewhat surprisingly picked the outgoing parliament chair as their new list leader. Their leader from last time - ex-EU Commissioner, deputy PM and FM and failed PM designate under the rotation agreement Maria Gabriel - is nowhere to be seen. This may or may not have anything to do with Gabriel being the only GERB politician in recent years to have become more popular than Boyko Borisov himself. It is quite likely that she is simply angling for an EU-wide position, though.

PP-DB - RE/EPP - (2019, as DB only - 6%, 1 MEP; 2014, as RB - 6%, 1 MEP):
Unlike the national elections, the list was settled pretty early, mostly because the incumbent MEP is happy to placed in a normally unelectable position, knowing that he will be reelected through preference votes.

DPS - RE - (2019 - 16%, 3 MEPs; 2014 - 17%, 4 MEPs)
A BSP-elected MEP is switching her allegiances to DPS (despite her history of opposition to the 'Euro-Atlanticist' tilt of her new party). As stated earlier, it is expected that the co-leader of the party who is heading the list and one of the incumbent MEPs will choose Sofia instead of Brussels.

Vazrazhdane - uh... - (2019 - 1%; 2014 - none)
Vazrazhdane are actively searching for a political family, even embracing Trumpism lately, and it remains to be seen where they will end up. At the head of the list are a non-descript MP, a journalist whose main claim to fame is triggering the libs and a community organizer in London.

BSP - PES - (2019 - 24%, 4 MEPs; 2014  - 19%, 4 MEPs)
All but one of the incumbents have been in open revolt against Ninova for years, and unsurprisingly there has been a complete clear-out of the list. The list leader is a former MEP from 2007-2014.

Other parties: VMRO (2019 - 9%, 2 MEPs; 2014 -1 MEP as a part of the BwC coalition) attempted to partner up with ITN, without avail, so neither party are looking likely to cross the higher threshold for the Euros (but with the latter infinitely likelier than the former to make it). The various splinters and new parties are also quite hopeless.

Expected results: for months the consensus has been that the following seats are virtually guaranteed:
GERB - 5
PP-DB - 3
DPS - 3
Vazrazhdane - 2
BSP - 1

But with both Vazrazhdane and BSP much more likely than not to have an additional seat, in reality it is just one seat that is up for grabs, and it is completely up in the air where among the top 3 parties it will go (unless ITN make it, in which case it will be theirs).


National parliament: As expected, various splinters and newcomers mean that a record 31 coalitions and parties have put up candidates. Only one seems to merit mentioning at this point:

... It is quite likely that the broad left will - again - have two lists to choose from in both the Euro and the Bulgarian elections - the Ninova one carrying the BSP brand and the dissident list, which will carry the BSP substance.

Nope. It will be three lists. Grigorova, the failed 2023 Sofia mayoral candidate of a broad BSP-headed coalition teamed up with the failed 2019 Sofia mayoral candidate of a broad BSP-headed coalition Maya Manolova (of IS!MV! fame, among others) and started a new 'Solidary Bulgaria' movement. They are also running for the EU parliament, but even if by some miracle they make it over the 4% national threshold, the EU one of 5.8% seems completely out of reach.

GERB (2023: 26.5%, 69 MPs)
I don't know how it appears from afar, but I know GERB-ers who are utterly perplexed why even despite the chaos of the past 3 years, they are completely stuck at the 25-27% range in public and private polling. They understand that Boyko Borisov is toxic to a substantial majority of Bulgarians, but still, they were expecting that they would be touching the low 30s, which is where they were for the entirety of the 2010s. The candidates and campaign they seem to be running is (yet another) appeal to the voters who are tired of constant elections. However, the expectation is that they will rule through the caretaker government for a bit - at least until the Constitutional court rules on the 2023 amendments, which made the GERB-headed caretaker government possible.

PP-DB (2023: 24.5%, 64* MPs)
*effectively down to 61 at the time of dissolution due to defections
Earlier I had written that at least 1 in 5 PP-DB voters will not repeat - well, the number is closer to 1 in 3 now. There has been a relentless campaign from all corners, including the erstwhile PP-DBers who were disappointed about the 'assembly' with GERB, and are now pouring vitriol and exposing scandals on a daily basis. Earlier, GERB profited from the fact that the vast majority of Bulgarians tune out political news and commentary, however by now they must regret it, since the scandals would have completely sunk PP* if people were paying attention. As it stands, the coalition has been left by the Greens who struck it out on their own** and by a number of high profile figures, but they are still the only realistic game in town for the urban pro-Ukrainian, anti-oligarchic vote.

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*There appears to be a conscious effort to separate PP and DB, with DB serving as the desired coalition partner in a future 'assembly' by all actors

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** I have a bet with a Vazrazhdane MP that 'our' splinter will get more votes than 'their' splinter, who are running with the (formerly exiled) oligarch Vasil Bozhkov, who made an appearance on pgs 3-4 of this thread

Vazrazhdane (2023: 14.6%, 37* MPs)
34 at the time of dissolution due to expulsions
The turmoil in Vazrazhdane appears to be over. In all likelihood, they will stay within 1% of their 2023 vote, but it will be curious to see if their focus on the diaspora in recent months will produce tangible results.

DPS (2023: 13.8%, 36* MPs)
34 at the time of dissolution since former leader Karadayi and his closest associate never made an appearance in parliament since the change in leadership
This is the first election where DPS is formally headed by Delyan Peevski and there are clear indicators that they are treating this election more seriously than the last 5 go-arounds - dues are being collected, favors called in, former dissidents brought back into the fold and, mostly, a significant increase in expenditure for both media and ground operations. The end goal is up for debate, but - repeating myself - the DPS's entire raison-d'etre it to be indispensable to any Bulgarian governement.

BSP (2023: 8.9%, 23 MPs)
An alarmist poll a few months ago placed BSP on par with ITN in the lower 6%. The split in the opposition to Ninova, however, as well as generally flying under the radar in the dirty compromat war between GERB-DPS and PP-DB, means that BSP are pretty much back to their original position, retaining their 'legacy' voters but not much else. Not much has changed in the party platform or its candidates as well.

ITN (2023: 4.1%, 11 MPs)
For a multitude of reasons - but mostly the direct and indirect support of one wing of the Radev administration - ITN have managed to establish themselves to the point where it will be a major surprise if they fail to make into the national parliament. Since their entire purpose in parliament, however, is to represent the nihilism of their voters, this will only complicate the rather delicate path to any semblance of a working majority.

Expected results
Elections round 7 in the autumn or early winter of 2024. There is no possibility of a majority without GERB. And GERB, as amply demonstrated in the past year, are tied to the hip with DPS. And with GERB and DPS always in the 112-119 seat range in all public and private polling, but virtually never hitting the magic 121, it will not be possible for the two parties to govern by themselves (and even if they did, Borisov would not want to be subjected to the expected barrage of negativity with a precarious majority of 1-2 votes). And with GERB-DPS being toxic to the vast majority of Bulgarians, no other party is appears willing to come into another 'assembly' with them. Of course, all bar Vazrazhdane could conceivably do it in the end, but as of now, the expectation is that the caretakers will be in place for quite some time, as the next parliament seeks a path to a majority that isn't there.


I may come back later if and when the muse strikes me. For now the floor is yours for questions and comments.

[Beagle]

1. Will turnout remain at 35-40% levels?

Well, given the oh-so-compelling options, you can hardly blame Bulgarians for being not exactly eager to get out and vote. Indeed, voter turnout is widely expected to remain in the 35-40% range. There are a few factors at play here. First, the voting rolls are quite outdated, with some 6.8 million people registered to vote in a country of only 6.1 million. So the true eligible voter pool is likely much smaller. Additionally, record numbers are expected to go with the "none of the above" option, with some polls suggesting 7-8% of voters will take that route. Many of those are disenchanted PP-DB supporters who have simply given up on the political process.

2. I read that some Turks are unhappy with a non-Turk leading DPS. Will this have an effect on their result?

That's a great question, although I'll admit I'm not the best qualified to answer it. From what I understand, 'honorary leader' Ahmed Dogan's rather abrupt decision to shift to a co-leadership model for DPS, with a Turk as Peevski's equal, was largely driven by concerns about discontent among the Turkish voter base, especially in the western Rhodopes and Deliorman regions where there is a stronger sense of Turkish identity.

As stated earlier, DPS has significant organizational capacity and tools at its disposal to try to manage any Turkish discontent within Bulgaria - the police, the forestry departments, the agriculture subsidies etc. However, the unknown factor is the effect on the vote in Turkey itself, which is an crucial bloc for DPS, up to 100 thousand votes worth.

Late last year, when the Turkish Foreign Minister visited Sofia, he made a point of meeting with former DPS leader Karadayi before meeting the new co-leaders. It may be noteworthy that in a previous role, as state security agency leader, the Turkish FM had banned Peevski from entering Turkey, accusing him of running cigarette smuggling operations. So there are certainly signs that Peevski alone was unacceptable to the Turkish state, and appointing him could have had significant repercussions for DPS' ability to turn out the Turkish expats.

While unsubstantiated, there are also rumors that Dogan may not have promoted Peevski entirely of his own volition - it's quite likely that Peevski helped Dogan pay off hefty government penalties related to one of Dogan's power plants and that the leadership was the price Peevski demanded.

Again, though, I do not speak Turkish and the information that reaches me is rather speculative in nature. Let me know if you have any other questions!

What would be some examples of PPDB scandals emerging recently? Also how do you see the future of the PP-DB cooperation?

Oof, well, where do I start. Unfortunately, the day still only has 24 hours, otherwise I would have been happy to list further examples, ranging from the serious to the preposterous. But still, a couple of scandals in the spoiler, as the level of detail is way out of place given the scope of this thread.

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As a preface, it must be stated that despite the early statements that the outgoing government was to be an entirely PP-DB one, with the exception of Maria Gabriel as FM and deputy PM, it emerged that in the wake of the leaked internal PP conversations scandal (

) GERB had exacted a price of having 'equidistant' ministers in several ministries, which in practice turned out to be loyal GERB-DPS footsoldiers. So in the past two months we have had:

* The Poodle affair: the chief secretary of the Interior Ministry (i.e. the professional, instead of political leadership) was a PP appointment to counterbalance the GERB minister. After the fall of the Denkov cabinet, the chief secretary abruptly resigned and went incommunicado for a couple of days. When he emerged, he withdrew his resignation - and the next day, the media were hit with a number of salacious photos, including photos of the chief secretary apparently accepting an expensive watch as a gift from a couple of [alleged] smugglers, photos of him partying with the smugglers and their toy poodle, and photos of the poodle alongside and carrying stacks of cash in its mouth (the last part was a clear throwback to an earlier scandal where pictures of Boyko Borisov's private drawers, containing stacks of cash and gold bullion were published in the PP-DB adjacent media. The caretaker PM, who had originally said that he kept the Denkov government interior minister in order to not leave the ministry headless in the wake of the chief secretary's resignation and was embarrassed when the resignation was withdrawn promptly fired him. Later on further pictures emerged of the smugglers alongside Kiril Petkov and another prominent PP figure, but also alongside Rumen Radev and a GERB MP.

* The Customs scandal: immediately after the change in governments, the head of the Customs agency was arrested after only 3 months on the job. She was a personal appointment of PP co-leader and finance minister Asen Vassilev. She is supposed to have protected certain smuggling rings in favor of a well known cigarette smuggler (who conveniently managed to make his escape).

* The E-government affair: the E-government minister, who was supposed to be a PP-DB appointment, suddenly requested and received special police protection... to guard him against retaliation by Kiril Petkov and a DB MP. Why? Well, apparently he had denied a certain contract to the DBer's protege (btw, even in the minister's telling, the reason to deny the contract was idiotic), and so was summoned to a meeting with Petkov. To quote verbatim from the minister's retelling of the scene in front of the police:
Petkov: So what are your plans for the future?
E-government minister: Well, I don't plan on being a minister forever, I can easily get a job on the private market.
Petkov: Don't you have children?
Minister: Yes!
Petkov: Well, the most important thing is that the kids are safe and sound.

At this point, as per the minister's recollection, he suddenly remembered that Petkov knows karate and that he is a very powerful man. The minister began to tremble and felt a threat to his family.

I can expound on this further, but you get the gist.
 

As to the future of the PP-DB cooperation, on many occasions it seemed to be teetering, especially since by now DB would definitely be ahead of PP if they ran separately, but the expected backlash against the 'Old Right' separating again, as well as the prospect that the two components would inevitably need to work jointly after the election, kept them together.

[Beagle]

1. How are people reacting to yesterday's election in North Macedonia?
2. This may be a stupid question (outside our politics nerd world) but do any Bulgarians envy their "cousins" for being able to get governments that last more than a year in recent times?

1. Bulgarians overwhelmingly believe that the 100-odd thousand Macedonians who applied for and received Bulgarian citizenship based on Bulgarian descent are actually Bulgarian at heart (and not simply interested in visa-free work and travel in the EU) and that there is a vast crypto-Bulgarian community in (North) Macedonia who are afraid to manifest themselves. Supposedly, the reason why the 2021 Macedonian census showed just 3k self-declared Bulgarians was fear of persecution and bad faith actions during the census taking by the Macedonian authorities. This is stoked by the nationalists camps in both countries, who provoke incidents (mostly on the (North) Macedonian side of the border) on a semi-regular basis.

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VMRO-DPMNE and the like proclaim the same reason why the 2021 Bulgarian census showed just 1,5k self-declared Macedonians

So the reaction among regular Bulgarians is almost exclusively one of anxiety that the 'anti-Bulgarian' camp is back in power after 7 years of the mostly conciliatory SDSM-DUI government. Whatever the reality on the ground, Bulgarians mostly feel concern that their brethren will be discriminated against and annoyance that the anti-Bulgarian rhetoric has proven so successful electorally. The official reaction is that no (further) compromise is possible on the constitutional question and that the Macedonians need to amend their constitution to include the Bulgarian minority to progress with their EU accession.

I will just mention in passing that a handful of Bulgarian DPS- and GERB-aligned businessmen/oligarchs who have investments in Macedonia - minuscule by world standards, but fairly large by local ones - made a point to be seen with VMRO-DPMNE figures during the campaign. Also, the Magnitsky-sanctioned richest man in Macedonia, who is effectively VMRO-DPMNE's treasurer, is very close to Boyko Borisov, who attempted on two separate occasions to make him Bulgarian honorary consul to help him with his problems with the law.

2. Ehh... different strokes etc., but I doubt that there is a single Bulgarian who holds (North) Macedonia as a paragon of democracy and good governance, not least because of the power-sharing agreement with the Albanians. I don't know how universal the feeling is, but in my circles the two Radev-appointed caretaker cabinets and the two PP-led governments, with all their faults and lunacies, are still viewed in better light than the stable Borisov III cabinet.

First, the voting rolls are quite outdated, with some 6.8 million people registered to vote in a country of only 6.1 million. So the true eligible voter pool is likely much smaller.

That seems pretty poor tbh - why is it so hard to properly update them?

It's also a problem in Romania, there is a huge demographic disbalance and mass migration, yet the voting rolls keep growing election to election. I have no clue why it is.

RGM hit the nail on the head, the 2021 census counted 6.1 million Bulgarian citizens living within the country and some 400k recorded as living permanently abroad, but the the voter rolls hold  6.8 million eligible voters, many of whom are completely unaware that they are entitled to vote in Bulgaria. I can expound on several such groups - Bulgarian Jews who made Aliyah as children*; the long-term diaspora, who have severed ties with the country; the previously mentioned Macedonians with Bulgarian passports - but by far the biggest group in this category are Bulgarian Turks who emigrated during the Big Excursion or later and who have assimilated in the Turkish society, but are still nominally Bulgarians too. Of course, there is a substantial issue with deaths abroad not being recorded, as the local authorities have no idea that they need to notify Bulgaria. Other than that, there is the general Bulgarian sloppiness with maintaining records - I can share a few anecdotes about that - but it does not make that much of a difference. Every so often parties moot introducing active voter registration, like in the US, but it is not looking likely that this will ever move past the drawing board.

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* I may have mentioned it in the past, my own voting precinct has some 15% Jews on its voter rolls - and borders the only nominally Jewish plurality precinct in the country - but upon second look, the overwhelming majority of them have birthdates in the 1920s, 30s and 40s and virtually none ever show up to vote. The reason is that when the Communist authorities put heavy pressure on the Bulgarian Jews to emigrate to Israel after 1948, the adults were forced to surrender their Bulgarian citizenship. However, the law at the time did not allow minors to give up their citizenship and so the children, without most of them ever being aware, are still Bulgarian citizens

[Beagle]

I would also be curious about the relations between BSP and the GERB-DPS cartel. I remember it being likely at one point that they would form a government together.

Following Ninova's extremely lucrative stint as the minister of charge of issuing weaponry export permits at the start of the Russian invasion, she/BSP are less susceptible to conventional bribery. And with Radev sitting out yet another election, eliminating/postponing the existential threat that loomed large at the time of the 5th consecutive election, and with Ninova's opposition split, BSP aren't looking to enter government at any cost.

Still, there is a chance of a GERB-DPS-BSP backed 'assembly', however it is distinctly the 4th choice among the status-quo.

By far the preferred option would be to split up PP and DB and reach an arrangement with the latter (or even just parts thereof). My DB acquaintances higher up in the chain, including a couple of MPs, swear to all and sundry that while a split with PP may come, there is zero likelihood of any DB faction supporting GERB-DPS after the experience of the last 2 years. We shall see.

The 2nd choice would be for GERB-DPS to co-opt ITN, presumably under some form of a technocratic 'expert' cabinet. ITN have already stated that their goal in the future parliament is to prevent a return of PP-DB to power. This brings the added benefit that Peevski will be able, just like in the previous parliament, to rub the noses of some of his erstwhile critics turned collaborators in the various machinations they would be expected to support now.
Alternatively, ITN could help GERB-DPS by simply failing the 4% threshold, which would make the math to 121 for GERB-DPS significantly easier.

It also remains possible, since the number of MPs required by GERB-DPS for a majority will almost certainly be in the single digits, to simply shop around for turncoats. This will come significantly cheaper than bringing DB, ITN or BSP into the fold, however the higher thresholds which were written into the Constitution for appointment of certain regulators/quangos would - presumably - still mean they'll need the cooperation of either PP-DB or Vazrazhdane for these votes. Or they may choose to merrily go along with the current appointees - after all, at least one of these commissions is still chugging along in year 14 (!) of their 4-year term, having outlasted 9 parliaments.