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

[Beagle]

Well that was unexpected. Will there even be a runoff in thebpresidential race with those results?

Turnout is estimated at 39% (a couple of points less than July), so yeah, a run-off is guaranteed, even though Radev may actually get 50% (but he'll probably fall just short). But I don't see any plausible path to victory for Gerdzhikov in the run-off, Radev is firmly in 'dead girl/live boy' territory.

Turnout, however, was *up* in Sofia and in the precinct I worked, it actually hit 50%, up some 50 raw votes from July (and about 20 less than April). PP won handily in 'my' poll, GERB held with a minor loss, DB dropped down to third (from 35% to 19%), ITN was down by more than half of their July result, BSP didn't manage the double digits in percentage, and Vazrazhdane, who had 4 votes in July, had 12 now. The manual count of the paper receipts took two hours from my life for absolutely no reason - the machine count was perfect - but the political geek in me had some fun in looking at how the people voting for X party voted for President.

In the April-May parliament, as mentioned earlier, the 'parties of the protest' removed the restrictions on the number of polling stations in countries outside the EU. From 35, the polling stations in Turkey mushroomed to 130-ish. The nationalists howled bloody murder, GERB and BSP accused ITN-DB-IS!MV! of betraying the country and entering a corrupt deal with DPS... and in the end, in July, DPS went from 21k votes in Turkey to 29k, less than one MP's 'worth'.
This time, there are over 90 000 DPS votes in Turkey. The recriminations have already started.

[RGM2609]

Any surprises in how people split their ballots or not?

[PSOL]

How did the Leftist splinter from BSP do?

[Beagle]

Any surprises in how people split their ballots or not?

Data not plural of anecdote, etc. + the machine split out two papers that were hanging on each other on a tiny sliver, it was up to the voter to separate them or not, so it's not a full count. But to me, it was noteworthy that Radev got 95% of PP votes and more than half of DB votes  (although we had a number of stereotypically PP/'Old Right'-looking voters who refused to cast a vote for president), but also 100% of BSP and half of Vazrazhdane voters, so he got support from both the most pro-Western and the most pro-Russian parties. As to the oddest couple, I guess it's the one voter who chose DB for parliament, but OG nationalist, wannabe fuhrer and current degenerate alcoholic Volen Siderov for president.

How did the Leftist splinter from BSP do?

BSP had a whole spiel about reuniting the left as part of their campaign, I think they advertised something like 14 leftist parties/movements/NGOs supporting them, including a couple from the earlier left-wing union (the communist nostalgists and the actual communists). The russophile party got 0.25% standing alone and the 'progressives' got 0.06% (sthg like 1 500 votes in total)

Fairly preliminary seat projections, bound to fluctuate by a couple of seats as the remaining 20% of official results trickle in. Given what is out, BSP may even drop to 5th and get less than 10%, both of which would have been unthinkable even 5 years ago.

NOVEMBER RESULT

COMPARISON W/ JULY

COMPARISON W/ APRIL

PP 66

N/A

N/A

GERB 58

-5

-17

DPS 36

+7

+6

BSP 27

-9

-16

ITN 25

-40

-16

DB 15

-19

-12

Vazrazhdane 13

N/A

N/A

Plausible majorities: PP+BSP+ITN+DB = 133/240
A not-completely-inconceivable-but-extremely-unlikely-'status-quo'-government (GERB+DPS+BSP) = 121/240
... and that's it, really. The math isn't mathing for any other coalition as of this moment.

There is a minuscule chance that PP+BSP+ITN can climb up to 120 seats, but realistically BSP is only going down from this point and what's out is not particularly hospitable to either PP or ITN (at least in comparison with their current result). And PP have actually said that DB is going to be a part of any government that they will propose.

Polling had a horrible miss, that's true, but the pundits' prediction that GERB and DPS on one side and the 'parties of the protest' on the other will have around 100 seats each was also demonstrably true, it's just that the composition of the two 'camps' was expected to be quite different. Also, instead of BSP holding the kingmaker position with 40 seats, it will only have about 25-26 at the end.

[Beagle]

Final results, unless there is some hidden tabulation error (I hope there is, given that 105 votes difference will turn the 13th Vazrazhdane seat into the 17th DB seat):

PP - 67 seats
GERB - 59 seats
DPS - 33 seats
BSP - 27 seats
ITN - 25 seats
DB - 16 seats
Vazrazhdane - 13 seats

No majority for status-quo GERB-DPS-BSP coalition; Vazrazhdane (who know full well what they are doing) demand a commitment that all covid restrictions be lifted immediately, so they are a no-go option; the PP-BSP-ITN-DB coalition (135/240) is the only choice now. Negotiations have already started.
________________________
Presidential results:
Radev (i) -PP,BSP,ITN- 49.4% R
Gerdzhikov -GERB- 22.8% R
Karadayi -DPS- 11.6%
Kostadinov -Vazrazhdane- 3.9%
Panov -DB- 3.6% (!)

Panov's eccentricities ended up costing DB at least 3-4 seats, as his final few days of campaigning were spent excoriating BSP, Radev, PP and virtually all of the 'Change' camp, especially DB itself, while claiming that GERB and DPS should not be ostracized and must be invited to any post-election government talks. This rankled supporters and observers alike, with many deciding last minute to go for the more consistent PP.  

Second round projection: safe Radev, of course. Alghough Ninova, hateful to the last, pointedly refused to endorse him and is urging her supporters to abstain from voting on Sunday.
________________________
And yes, to the last: Ninova was left in an untenable position when several of her supporters on the BSP national council deserted her; her resignation was deposited earlier today, although it only becomes effective in January and she wants to lead the government negotiations with PP, which is currently the major point of contention.

All DB leaders have also resigned, but they, too, will hold the PP talks.

[Dereich]

Is ITN maintaining their anti-Petkov position now that PP emerged as the big winners?

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Once again, thank you for all this.

Honestly, who is still sticking with ITN?

[Flyersfan232]

Once again, thank you for all this.

Honestly, who is still sticking with ITN?

V could take some of there voters

[Beagle]

Is ITN maintaining their anti-Petkov position now that PP emerged as the big winners?

Is ITN maintaining their anti-Petkov position now that PP emerged as the big winners?

Right now, no. But it is far too early in the process, nobody wants to come across as unreasonable. I suppose it would have been helpful if the co-leader of PP Vasilev was not actively suing the scriptwriter, who was the ITN parliamentary leader, for defamation*, or if the deputy head of ITN didn't call the presumptive foreign minister from PP a EU funds fraud**, but ♪ you can't always get what you want ♫. They are saying that the private dealings of the parties leaders will not influence the negotiations on the party level, we'll see.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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* the scriptwriter probably wouldn't use such a blunt example of irony in his scripts, as it is far too obvious, but: he accused the then-economy-minister of intellectual property theft in his business dealings, as he had settled a lawsuit in the US from a former business partner who claimed that the proprietary software he had developed suddenly emerged as the backbone of the product of another company that Vasilev had interests in. The scriptwriter ended a rather scathing parliamentary speech by saying 'IP theft is still theft, and no thief should be minister in the Bulgarian government!'

[4 days later]

ITN propose plagiarist Plamen Iliev as deputy prime minister and security minister

** factcheck: eh, he did have a conflict of interest

Honestly, who is still sticking with ITN?

In a word - the young. Those who never remember a time when Boyko Borisov was not a major figure in political life and those who have come of age after the BSP-SDS battles of the 90s.

If you want, I can expound on Ninova's latest antics, but I'm feeling that this thread is becoming entirely too dedicated to her and she's the leader of the 4th largest party with about 10% support. For the same reasons I don't discuss too often the various pathologies activities of the 'Old Right' leadership, as they are interesting to me, but not particularly relevant to elections or to Bulgarian politics at large, as the parties are tiny.

[CumbrianLefty]

Given that the BSP were a major player in the not at all distant past, and could yet be again however unlikely it might seem just now, a bit more about their current travails might be in order.

Pretty please

[Beagle]

BSP is not a minor player, regardless of their actual results, if only because they have significant support among the economic elite. As previously alluded, great fortunes were made during the BSP governments and the joke which we played on Marx was that for a time virtually all our capitalists were ideologically Socialist.

Anyway, the Ninova soap opera carries on further. I will spare you the procedural tricks, but in short there was a 'virtual' meeting of the BSP national council over the past two days, in which voting took place by e-mail. Around 12:00 the BSP PR department issued a statement that Ninova has been selected to lead a) the party until its national congress in mid-January, where she will formally deposit her resignation and b) lead the negotiation team with PP by a vote of 113:9 or something. A couple of hours later, the internal opposition declared that the vote was still open, that at least 60 people had voted Ninova down, that under the rulebook now there should be a physical meeting of the council and that under the same rulebook there should now be an interim leader of the party with a view towards a mid-December vote for party leader. The rumor mill says that Ninova is putting pressure on her loyalists to reject her resignation (if there is something to reject - presently Ninova has yet to submit her formal resignation) and that she is gearing up for yet another campaign for leader. A split is looking likelier and likelier; there are 7-8 BPs (mostly on the younger side), who are for unconditional negotiations with PP, another 14-15 who are with Ninova through thick and thin, and who would presumably support her conditions to PP - keeping the veto on Macedonia's EU accession and no giving in to 'gender ideology', ie LGBT issues - and maybe 4 or 5 who find the whole coalition business a bit icky and wouldn't want to throw BSP's lot in with ITN and DB.
__________________________

In other news: Turnout was actually down compared to July by only a tiny sliver - less than a percent - but this was actually on a basis of the 50-60 thousand extra votes in Turkey. There was a rather populous protest in front of the Turkish embassy yesterday and some diplomatic friction between the two countries over the conduct of the election, in which some Turkey voting stations processed one voter every 20 seconds (and keep in mind that the voters abroad need to fill out a declaration that they have not and will not vote elsewhere + their names need to be inscribed on the voter roll manually). In at least one station where there was a neutral observer, apparently all the voters had to do was show up and present their ID card, from then on they were not even allowed to touch the voting machine; everything, including filling out the declaration and pushing the button on the touchscreen was done for them by helpers. Upon protest, the answer was that this is normal, since the people can't read Bulgarian.

Turnout should be substantially lower tomorrow, especially in the voting stations in Turkey. An Gerdzhikov upset cannot be completely ruled out, given how badly polling missed the parliamentary election, but it is actually likelier IMO that Radev wins by a bigger margin than in the first round. There was a debate between Radev and Gerdzhikov (in which both camps were given the questions beforehand), it produced a fair number of headlines, but I'm pretty sure that everybody who is interested enough in politics to watch a presidential debate already knows which way they are voting.

There is also the GERB prospective MP, who committed a murder-suicide. This may have made the news in the Netherlands, which is where he killed his girlfriend before flying to Sofia and killed himself when the police came to apprehend him, but this really veers far off from the electoral focus of this thread.

[Beagle]

President Radev had a rather routine cakewalk of a reelection after all, winning by an approximately 2:1 margin against the Sofia University rector Gerdzhikov, who may as well have walked around tied to Boyko Borisov - there is zero evidence he won anybody who was not already voting for GERB or a DPS stalwart (but the evidence showed that about 30% of the DPS voters who turned out defied the party leadership and went for Radev - but then again, just 25-30% of the DPS voters from the 1st round turned out; in Turkey, where a number of Bulgarian parties sent observers to the suspect voting stations, turnout was down by 75%).

[Beagle]

A crude attempt of a map, the key is obviously completely wrong: I have repurposed the green of DB for PP; the lightest shades are places where GERB and PP (top 2 parties everywhere except in the areas won by DPS) were within 5%; next darker is where they were within 10%. DPS are, strictly speaking, more than 40% ahead of the next highest party in Kardzhali, but to create another color would be even more confusing. And yes, PP were more than 15% ahead of GERB in Sofia 23.



I see GMantis has been around, hopefully he can upload something more presentable (and maybe even do a municipalities map).

I thought I'd post my attempt at reworking GMantis' electoral district map from April for the July election.  I have no idea how to create a new key, so I used the outdated one from the original, I think the two changes are clear:



For comparison, here is the April one, made by GMantis

[Beagle]

After a 3-week-long courtship period that had all the charm and intrigue of an arranged marriage, the 4 non-toxic parties (PP, BSP, ITN and DB) tied the knot yesterday, with the government investiture vote happening on Monday. There were the gimmicks (ie livestreaming the program talks), the occasional tantrum and the rather pointed insistence that this is a coalition between PP and each of the individual parties separately, but the outcome didn't really appear in doubt at any point - the punishment the voters inflicted on the 'parties of the protest' for failing to produce a government twice made sure of that.

Still, it would be a stretch to suggest that any party got exactly what they wanted.

PP, on paper, have 10 of the seats in cabinet. But:
- PP had to accommodate President Radev's people; with the caretaker PM (at defence) and the interior minister considered to be his direct nominations;
- the above-mentioned interior minister has spent his entire career in the service of the Bulgarian Communist/Socialist Party, however since he was very much part of the opposition to Ninova, BSP considered him a betrayer and absolutely refused to take him as part of 'their' quota, so he also counts as PP;
- the thankless Health ministry has also defaulted to PP, it was funny how every other party rejected out of hand being given the task of handling covid, even as a 'bonus' ministry

In short, PP demonstrated the naivety/guilelessness that has pretty much become their brand.

BSP - most of the negotiations actually revolved around finding Ninova a suitably high position. Early on, there was a plan for a rotational chairmanship of parliament, with Ninova getting the chair for the first year, but once it got (accidentally on purpose) leaked by one of the DB parties, the outcry meant the idea was DOA. So now she will become deputy PM and minister with a brief that is ostensibly economy and industry, but in practical terms, she will oversee some - but not all - of the state-owned enterprises. I would say this brings her career to a full circle, as she started out in politics as a SDS (Old Right) government political appointment to the board of several state-owned enterprises at the ripe old age of 26, but since she is - of course - running in the snap BSP leadership election, it is far too early to talk of career ends.

Initially, PP had talked about the 'A-team' government, where each of the parties would put up the best prepared and qualified nominees for ministers. Ninova, however, installed staunch loyalists in the BSP briefs without any regard to their actual profiles (ie a mining engineer as Tourism minister or a lawyer/historian at Agriculture), so now the talk is that the parties bear responsibility for their ministers.

ITN - surprisingly or not, they created the least obstructions for PP. Their one demand was that they replace the person who PP had in mind for Foreign Affairs, as he had given an overtly conciliatory interview on the North Macedonian EU accession immediately after the election.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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If the PP candidate for FM had gotten the position, it would have been the 3rd time in 25 years where Bulgaria's foreign minister was a representative of our tiny Jewish community (the guy had even been a member of Israeli Young Labor when studying at the University of Tel Aviv). As it is, he was given a nothing brief - Growth and Innovation

Except the two nominees ITN put forward for FM were rejected: the first for vastly overstating his work for a BSP MEP but also for starting the Canadian citizenship attack on PP leader/PM designate Petkov, the latter for being literally 30 years old with no qualifications whatsoever. So the new FM will be... the defence nominee from the failed ITN proposed cabinets of 3 months ago. Who, while having some experience with NATO summits and the like, is a career military woman and was mostly known as Radev's advisor.

DB - for a while DB played coy - 'We actually don't want any ministerial positions, we are happy to support PP from outside'; then the Greens demanded as many cabinet seats as they have MPs (2). Ultimately, 2 of the 3 parties will oversee their pet issues, while the 3rd - DSB - will not have any ministers in order to retain a modicum of deniability when asked why they are collaborating with BSP - but they will get a number of positions as a compensation.

It remains to be seen how long the honeymoon phase is going to last, but initial signs are positive - the government will be able to implement some pretty radical changes if they want to. Still, to fulfill the most ambitious part of the agenda would take a constitutional majority (160/240) and with 136 MPs, the Petkov government will almost certainly fall short - not to mention that we will see the spectacle of an indicted PM before too soon, as the Canadian citizenship issue is a tool the GERB/DPS/captured state prosecutor's office are very much intending to use.

Virtually everybody expects the 4-party configuration to last - at most - until the local elections in late 2023, when the coalition parties will presumably be competing against each other. But maybe this thread is going to be dormant in 2022.

[Storr]

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov is facing a no confidence vote on Wednesday, which he's expected to lose. On Thursday Parliament Speaker Nikola Minchev was ousted, who like Petkov is member of PP.  

The latest crisis was caused when Slavi Trifonov pulled ITN out of the governing coalition due to "budget disagreements" and because Petkov was evidently being too soft on the issue of allowing Northern Macedonia to begin EU accession talks. A successful vote would trigger another election and likely scuttle Bulgaria's aim of adopting the Euro in 2024.

https://www.politico.eu/article/bulgaria-no-confidence-vote-kiril-petkov-government-collapse/

[Flyersfan232]

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov is facing a no confidence vote on Wednesday, which he's expected to lose. On Thursday Parliament Speaker Nikola Minchev was ousted, who like Petkov is member of PP.  

The latest crisis was caused when Slavi Trifonov pulled ITN out of the governing coalition due to "budget disagreements" and because Petkov was evidently being too soft on the issue of allowing Northern Macedonia to begin EU accession talks. A successful vote would trigger another election and likely scuttle Bulgaria's aim of adopting the Euro in 2024.

https://www.politico.eu/article/bulgaria-no-confidence-vote-kiril-petkov-government-collapse/

How many elections till new government

[MRCVzla]

Petkov lost the no-confidence motion, 123-116 and 1 absent (GERB-DPS-VAZ-ITN for, PP-BSP-DB-ITN dissidents against, also one DPS MP voted against mistakenly). By Bulgarian constitution, President Radev is forced to give Petkov another mandate, but at this point, a 4th legislative electoral round could be very likely than ever (and continue their inesperate rivalry with Israel about unstable governments and endless snap elections)... Unless the "new majority" want to form a government with the current parliament, lead by Borisov/some other GERB hack or even another technocrat, who knows.

If a new election is hold, ITN may be hurt badly or even be out of parliament, Vazrazhdane will go up by sure and Yanev' party could debut with a decent result. Enough to a GERB comeback? or PP/DB bloc being rewarded by their attempts to reform the country? (BSP is a box of surpises, due to pre-election polls always overstimate their results).

Stay tuned.

[Beagle]

Petkov lost the no-confidence motion, 123-116 and 1 absent (GERB-DPS-VAZ-ITN for, PP-BSP-DB-ITN dissidents against, also one DPS MP voted against mistakenly). By Bulgarian constitution, President Radev is forced to give Petkov another mandate, but at this point, a 4th legislative electoral round could be very likely than ever (and continue their inesperate rivalry with Israel about unstable governments and endless snap elections)... Unless the "new majority" want to form a government with the current parliament, lead by Borisov/some other GERB hack or even another technocrat, who knows.

If a new election is hold, ITN may be hurt badly or even be out of parliament, Vazrazhdane will go up by sure and Yanev' party could debut with a decent result. Enough to a GERB comeback? or PP/DB bloc being rewarded by their attempts to reform the country? (BSP is a box of surpises, due to pre-election polls always overstimate their results).

Stay tuned.

Quite correct. It would be shocking* in the extreme if the 'new majority' forms a government, though, especially one led by Borisov. To the extent that a government in this parliament is possible, it would be a PP-BSP-DB one, propped up by ITN and Vazrazhdane dissidents + strategic non-voting by ITN proper. ITN proper are well aware that their stunt has turned their already iffy survival in a new parliament into a pipedream. Some ITN noises are being made how a change of PM and a listening culture could make them reevaluate their support for PP. Still, they ain't getting their desired appointee as chair of the National Bank whatever happens, so new elections in the beginning of October are far likelier than any reshuffled configuration in this parliament.

* also: hilarious

[RGM2609]

Beagle, lol @ you thinking this thread would be dormant in 2022. Bulgarian politics never disappoint. Are you happy with the Petkov government and the job it has done?

[Flyersfan232]

Petkov lost the no-confidence motion, 123-116 and 1 absent (GERB-DPS-VAZ-ITN for, PP-BSP-DB-ITN dissidents against, also one DPS MP voted against mistakenly). By Bulgarian constitution, President Radev is forced to give Petkov another mandate, but at this point, a 4th legislative electoral round could be very likely than ever (and continue their inesperate rivalry with Israel about unstable governments and endless snap elections)... Unless the "new majority" want to form a government with the current parliament, lead by Borisov/some other GERB hack or even another technocrat, who knows.

If a new election is hold, ITN may be hurt badly or even be out of parliament, Vazrazhdane will go up by sure and Yanev' party could debut with a decent result. Enough to a GERB comeback? or PP/DB bloc being rewarded by their attempts to reform the country? (BSP is a box of surpises, due to pre-election polls always overstimate their results).

Stay tuned.

Quite correct. It would be shocking* in the extreme if the 'new majority' forms a government, though, especially one led by Borisov. To the extent that a government in this parliament is possible, it would be a PP-BSP-DB one, propped up by ITN and Vazrazhdane dissidents + strategic non-voting by ITN proper. ITN proper are well aware that their stunt has turned their already iffy survival in a new parliament into a pipedream. Some ITN noises are being made how a change of PM and a listening culture could make them reevaluate their support for PP. Still, they ain't getting their desired appointee as chair of the National Bank whatever happens, so new elections in the beginning of October are far likelier than any reshuffled configuration in this parliament.

* also: hilarious

what the differences between v and that new party

[Beagle]

PP have thrown in the towel on forming a minority government . The announcement that they will renominate Petkov as PM, as well as the vote to lift the veto on [North] Macedonia's accession talks, locked ITN proper within the GERB-DPS-Vazrazhdane opposition camp, despite their protestations to the contrary. Since GERB are not even going to attempt proposing a government (the only party which has not explicitly ruled out supporting a GERB government is DPS), the only chance to prolong the miserable life of this parliament would be if the third-shot-party, be it BSP, ITN or DB, somehow convinces GERB to support a program/technocratic government until the end of the year or something.

TL:DR - elections in the fall are virtually certain, the only question is if the various actors are going to take their time in confirming them

Beagle, lol @ you thinking this thread would be dormant in 2022.

Haha, well, my actual election night prediction was:

More will be coming in the next few days, but the *only* path forward now is PP-BSP-ITN-DB finding some sort of working arrangements that should satisfy them for half an year or so.

which they outlasted by a whole 3 weeks!

Are you happy with the Petkov government and the job it has done?

There is precious little that the Petkov government actually did, so evaluating them on accomplishments would inevitably result in a failing grade. They were (are) dysfunctional, contradictory, flailed a fair bit (admittedly, in the sort of conditions where most governments are flailing)... but then again, this is what the voters voted for. And they are apparently pleased with it, since by all indicators, we are heading for another dysfunctional, contradictory and flailing parliament, where the major difference will be a much increased Vazrazhdane grouping.

what the differences between v and that new party

Well, Kostadinov (Vazrazhdane) is about 20 years younger and 10 cm taller than Yanev, other than that not much, I guess:

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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My earlier statement is very much still valid:

Attempts such as the above to place the parties on the left-right/liberal-conservative axis are well-intentioned, but quite simply put, virtually all parties today are deeply personalist, they stand for whatever the party leader has claimed today - even though it may be the complete opposite of what the leader said yesterday

As of today, the difference is that while Kostadinov is/acts* an loud-and-proud Putinist, Yanev's position is that morally Russia is in the wrong, but it will inevitably win and it only prolongs the agony to support Ukraine, so the sooner things get back to 'normal', the better.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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* Okay, I've been meaning to write an effortpost about Vazrazhdane at some point, but it seems doubtful I'll ever find the time, so I may as well say it now: IMO it's wrong to think of Kostadinov as a Bulgarian Kotleba, an Eastern European far-right wannabe fuhrer who is raising bands of goons to fight against the liberal establishment. From what I see, in  Vazrazhdane's case, the bands of goons itching for a fight against the liberal establishment are raising the leader. Kostadinov is quite happy to support whatever the contrarian position of the day is, but his chief, and maybe only, ideology is the betterment of Kostadinov himself. As an example, when Vazrazhdane became the party of, for and by anti-vaxxers in 2020, somebody dug up how in 2015 Kostadinov was getting into fights with anti-vaxxers in his facebook comments, calling them ignorant degenerate scum and worse. It was also funny how one of his deputies, who nowadays has been ranting against Ukrainian nazis and proudly wearing Z ribbons, had called Putin a Stalin-like mass murderer as late as 2018 (when she was not yet affiliated with Vazrazhdane).

Vazrazhdane's core supporters, on the other hand, have radicalized on their own (mostly through facebook) and many of them have truly drunk the kool-aid.

[Beagle]

I actually have time right now, but there's very little happening (of actual significance; otherwise I can spend countless hours on issues such as whether or not a GERB-DPS-BSP-parts of ITN /proper/ ad hoc coalition will be able to bring back paper voting as an alternative to the voting machines). From what I gather, there are actually enough potential ITN and Vazrazhdane renegades to give the new PM candidate (it's Assen Vassilev, the other half of the Harvard crew that founded PP) a chance to get a minority government elected. The question is if the PP-BSP-DB minority government can actually justify the price* the newly minted independents would exact for each contentious vote and this is very much in doubt. I stand by my statement that new elections are far likelier than the alternative.

* In some cases, the price might not be that high. One Vazrazhdane MP that may or may not be on the market is, ahem, a self-standing transportation business entrepreneur, as per his official bio.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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In other words - a taxi driver

 

I'd thought I'd post a poll from the past few days. The first number is obviously the prospective share of the vote; in brackets I'm posting the answers the pollster found when they asked the supporters of the various parties, "If the world is coming to a Cold-war-like division, on which side should Bulgaria be".

GERB - 21.5% (Bulgaria should stand with the EU and NATO: 58%; Bulgaria should stand with Russia - 12%)
PP - 20% (EU/NATO - 68%; Russia - 14%)
BSP - 11.5% (EU/NATO - 21%; Russia - 56%)
DPS - 9% ('don't know' is the runaway winner-  here with 50%; EU/NATO - 23%; Russia - 21%)
Vazrazhdane - 8% (EU/NATO - 17%; Russia - 49% - actually, by their rhetoric, I'm surprised there are so many pro-Westerners in Vazrazhdane, my guess is that there are a fair amount of single issue anti-vax voters, who are ready to overlook foreign policy if there will be no more lockdowns or masks)
DB - 7% (EU/NATO - 96%; Russia - 0%)
BV - 5% (BV standing for Balgarski Vazhod, loosely translated as Bulgarian Rise, the new Stefan Yanev-led party which has been discussed obliquely above. Stefan Yanev is the two-time caretaker PM and ex-defence minister in the PP-BSP-ITN-DB government, who was sacked for taking an overly conciliatory position re: Russia) (EU/NATO - 25%; Russia - 38%)
_____________
ITN - 3% (EU/NATO - 58%; Russia - 13%

According to the survey, the turnout in the hypothetical fall election is going to be horrific; almost certainly less than 40%.

And the results of a (probably) meaningless mayoral by-election in a GERB ruled municipality of some 30 thousand:

GERB - 52%; a hefty win for the local MP running for mayor, but somewhat less impressive considering the deceased GERB mayor had won 67% back in 2019
DB and BSP - 32%; much gnashing of teeth in the BSP opposition wing when Ninova endorsed the DB candidate
PP and ITN - 13%
Vazrazhdane - 2.5%

DPS, who had 6% of the vote at the regular election in 2019, informally endorsed GERB, but the Roma neighborhood, which is their electoral stronghold in the town, recorded comically low turnout numbers: the 6 precincts with some 5 thousand voters between them recorded a total of 104 votes.

[GMantis]

I see GMantis has been around, hopefully he can upload something more presentable (and maybe even do a municipalities map).

Sorry, I've been rather busy these last few months. I'll definitely try to post maps on the recent elections, at the very latest before the next elections (if there are such this year).

[DavidB.]

What happened to VRMRO and the other former United Patriots parties? I've seen on Twitter that the VMRO MEPs in Brussels are quite pro-Ukraine; does that go against the general mood on the Bulgarian hard right?

[Beagle]

What happened to VRMRO and the other former United Patriots parties? I've seen on Twitter that the VMRO MEPs in Brussels are quite pro-Ukraine; does that go against the general mood on the Bulgarian hard right?

I was going to say that the former United Patriots are all down to the grifters and the parasites, but that's pretty much what they were even before the 2021 election cycle.

VMRO are mostly active on the Macedonian issue (ie picketing PM Petkov's home* with "Macedonia is not for sale" and "Petkov is a traitor" signs) and an occasional roadblock in protest against the lifting of the accession veto. I don't go out of my way to check on them, but since the party leader is a regular feature on war topics (mostly because of the generous media packages the defense ministry doled out during his 2017-2021 stint as minister), my impression is that he/VMRO are firmly against any military support for Ukraine (as it would supposedly weaken even further our non-existent defense capabilities),  and want a negotiated end to the conflict as soon as possible. From what I've seen, the most pro-Ukraine statement is concern for the sizable contingent of ethnic Bulgarians there. I'm guessing the MEPs are speaking out/acting not under VMRO directives, but on their own (or ECR) initiative. The party itself stands absolutely no chance of making into parliament on its own, it will probably even fall under the 1% hurdle for state financing, so I guess they will attempt to hitch a ride into parliament. Coalition partners could be BV, ITN (proper)/ITN (renegades), GERB or even BSP, but I'm certain that Vazrazhdane will refuse any overtures to "unite the patriotic vote". Actually, I don't think any of the above-named parties would be interested in a coalition, unless VMRO were to cough up a sizable amount of the campaign budget.


* this is not an official residence, just a regular apartment in the Sofia city centre, so it was a 20 min performance for the cameras from their small clown troupe handful of activists

NFSB are dead as the dodo. They have a new name and leader and may too seek a coalition, but since they won't contribute even a fraction of the VMRO finances, I can't see anyone serious taking them on.

Ataka's leader Volen Siderov was arrested for umpteenth time on Friday. These days his gimmick (when not in a drunken stupor) is to walk around with his party's TV camera crew and assault various doormen and security guards when trying to enter some establishment where 'something bad'^TM happened or is happening. Ataka may try to latch on to some Putinist coaltion, but Vazrazhdane is going to find the remaining 10 thousand or so cultists Ataka-ists more trouble than they're worth, considering their leader's astronomical demands. Barring something absolutely extraordinary, Ataka are also dead.

My gripes against the [far/hard/extreme] left-right monikers in Bulgarian politics aside, I'd agree that pro-Ukraine sentiments are rather the exception in that spectrum. The stereotypical 'nationalist' voter is anti-Western. Many of them are also nostalgic for the times when Bulgaria was a military power under the Soviet overlord or harbor pro-Russian feelings for other reasons. It doesn't help that the Bessarabian Bulgarians, for whom the nationalist parties are the self-proclaimed speakers, really do tend to be pro-Russian both in Ukraine and in Moldova.