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

[Beagle]

In the coming week, we shall see if the purported pressure that the EU/US have put on GERB and PP to come to terms (as per the leak) will bear fruit.

...and the answer is a resounding 'yes'. As Kiril Petkov put it in the leaked recording, 'Charles Michel and Ursula [von der Leyen] have been calling me on a daily basis, one would think that they have nothing more important to do'.

A lot can happen by Tuesday, when the investiture vote is scheduled, but as of today, the Denkov government has been named and the scuttlebutt is that it will pass. The concessions GERB extracted after the ruinous PP leak were fairly mild - several PP party hacks gave way for less obvious partisans (many of them former deputy ministers in either the Petkov government or one of the caretakers), the PP founder and co-leader Asen Vasilev will become finance minister, but not deputy PM, and - most importantly - EU funds distribution will now fall in GERB's sole portfolio. The surprising leniency may or may not have something to do with the fact that the Chief prosecutor has requested the lifting* of parliamentary immunity for Boyko Borisov in a money laundering case**. The brutal attack PP are weathering from Rumen Radev and his associates also binds GERB and PP-DB together.

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* as per the PP leak:

[DB leader] Hristo [Ivanov] has come up with a way to filibuster any immunity-lifting requests coming Boyko's way, by adopting the EU parliament procedure and having an all-party-committee deliberate for 6+ months

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** something on which DB has been banging the drum for 4-5 years, but the prosecutors only somehow got to now - Borisov allegedly got a model pregnant and bought her off with a house and boutique in Barcelona

 

Anyway, the Denkov government will have just about half of the ministers that were originally named by PP a month ago. Maria Gabriel (GERB) will be deputy PM and FM for 9 months, after which she is supposed to become PM. There was a last minute switch at Justice (with a more 'realo'-wing DB MP getting the job, despite the earlier insistence that DB would not supply any ministers to the government), which was done to ensure that the vote in parliament goes smoothly.

One GERB MP in particular has been pretty vocal in his opposition to the coalition cooperation with PP***. He is supposed to be the leader of a small fraction, but most observers expect nothing more than token resistance by them. Obviously the PP leaker/whistleblower is now out of the PP-DB group and will oppose the Denkov government. The former interior minister Rashkov (PP) has also made it clear that he cannot vote for a government with GERB. He is supposed to be alone in this, but one cannot exclude other hold-outs, as well. However, at least 121 votes out of the 132 GERB-PP-DB now have are pretty much assured...
... and may not even be required, as DPS has - surprisingly - announced that they will not 'stand in the way' of the Denkov government. After long talks - which included Delyan Peevski, previously discussed on these pages, speaking with his stated arch-enemies in PP-DB - a majority of 168 between GERB-PP-DB-DPS has been found for the parliamentary appointments which require a qualified majority and for amendments to the constitution concerning judicial reform. The devil will be in the details, of course.

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*** somehow, the request for lifting his parliamentary immunity was withdrawn by the chief prosecutor, who suddenly discovered several flaws in the indictment

 
Vazrazhdane and ITN (the latter parroting President Radev, as per usual) are excoriating the PP traitors on a daily basis, so, needless to say, they will be in opposition to the Denkov government. So will BSP, who now are in a somewhat strange position - Ninova had apparently promised BSP support to the original proposed Gabriel-led government of GERB-DPS-ITN. But once the scandal with the chief prosecutor erupted, this promise was abruptly withdrawn, leaving GERB with no choice but to go with PP-DB. But they are not joining in with the Radev-Vazrazhdane choir either.

[locked_out]

Is there a sense that the new government could tie up some of the remaining issues standing in the way of North Macedonia's accession to the EU? Or is the sense that this government will be narrowly focused on Bulgaria joining Schengen and the Euro? Is GERB too nationalist to support any concessions on Macedonia?

[Beagle]

Is there a sense that the new government could tie up some of the remaining issues standing in the way of North Macedonia's accession to the EU? Or is the sense that this government will be narrowly focused on Bulgaria joining Schengen and the Euro? Is GERB too nationalist to support any concessions on Macedonia?

I must admit I'm not very familiar with the current state of the accession process, but I believe that the ball is in the [North] Macedonian court for now. IIRC, the 'Macron proposal' was that in exchange for lifting the Bulgarian veto, Macedonia would amend its constitution to include Bulgarians among its national minorities (packaged with Montgenegrins, Croatians etc. to make it more palatable). But the process is stuck because there is no constitutional majority in parliament without VMRO-DPMNE and they are currently in a 'we shall not surrender our national identity' posture. And I'm skeptical that the GERB-PP-DB coalition configuration will still be around by the time of the next step at which Bulgaria's approval will be required.

On a broader scale, GERB-PP-DB are the best possible scenario for Macedonia's EU aspirations. GERB are not particularly aggressive on the issue (this is the domain of President Radev, Vazrazhdane and ITN) and PP, well...

...when the leaked PP meeting dropped, including the part where the Radev-ite leadership of state security agencies were to be replaced with 'embassies'-approved heads, an emergency meeting of parliament was called for a hearing of the aforementioned leadership. The hearing was open-doors, so that it could be broadcast, so no particular secrets were divulged. But the three chiefs took the opportunity to gravely intone in front of the cameras how:
- the Petkov government did not act in the national interest [by lifting the veto] and that the ITN (Radev-ite) FM at the time was sabotaged by her deputy from PP in her attempts to block the Macedonian EU accession;
- A Petkov advisor is under investigation for treason for clandestinely providing the Macedonians with the Bulgarian talking points in advance, so that they could be parried easily at the joint talks with the French EU-Council-presidency;
- PP-aligned people may be consulting the Macedonians on their EU accession.

So yeah, I think PP are amenable to tying up the loose ends and letting Macedonia join the EU if the opportunity comes.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

PP being "Macedonian agents" is absurdly based, I appreciate their consistent commitment to being the party for Atlas posters.

[Storr]

Vazrazhdane had gained enough signatures to put Euro adoption up for referendum, but Parliament rejected it last week:

https://twitter.com/TheSofiaGlobe/status/1677286698001080320?s=20

[DavidB.]

Vazrazhdane had gained enough signatures to put Euro adoption up for referendum, but Parliament rejected it last week:

Ridiculous that this was rejected. This is why constitutions should provide for automatically organizing a binding referendum once the required number of signatures is reached instead of needing approval from parliament first. Not adopting the Euro without having an official opt-out is accepted by the European Commission; Sweden sets the precedent.

[Storr]

Vazrazhdane had gained enough signatures to put Euro adoption up for referendum, but Parliament rejected it last week:

Ridiculous that this was rejected. This is why constitutions should provide for automatically organizing a binding referendum once the required number of signatures is reached instead of needing approval from parliament first. Not adopting the Euro without having an official opt-out is accepted by the European Commission; Sweden sets the precedent.

The government's planned date for Euro adoption is January 1, 2025 (pushed forward from Jan. 1, 2024 at the beginning of the current year). Every year the EU publishes a Eurobarometer survey where they poll non opt-out countries which have yet to adopt the Euro. 2023's poll came out in June and based on the results, I can see why the Bulgarian Parliament is doing all it can to avoid having a Euro referendum:

Q9 What consequences do you think the introduction of the euro has had in the countries that
are already using the euro? (% - Total)

48% Bulgarians responded with "Very positive consequences" or "Rather positive consequences", lowest of the 6 countries polled.


Q10_1 Do you think the introduction of the euro would have positive or negative consequences for
(THIS COUNTRY)? (%)

43% of Bulgarians felt it would have "Very positive consequences" or "Rather positive consequences", lowest of the countries polled.


Q11 Generally speaking, are you personally more in favour or against the idea of introducing
the euro in (THIS COUNTRY)? (%)

49% of Bulgarians were "Rather against its introduction" or "Very much against its introduction", highest of countries polled, except for Czechia (55% against).

[FrancoAgo]

Sweden is out because not fulfill the requirements, and Bulgaria can stay out with same not fulfill the requirements, if Bulgaria is already fulfilled the requirements it's a them fault

[Beagle]

Ridiculous that this was rejected. This is why constitutions should provide for automatically organizing a binding referendum once the required number of signatures is reached instead of needing approval from parliament first. Not adopting the Euro without having an official opt-out is accepted by the European Commission; Sweden sets the precedent.

Legally there is zero doubt that the signature threshold that makes holding a referendum mandatory has been reached. However, referendums may not be held on 'questions settled in an international treaty' and opponents argue that the commitment Bulgaria made to adopt the Euro when signing the EU accession treaty make it impossible to hold a referendum on the matter. Proponents (Vazrazhdane) argue that the question only postpones the Euro adoption by 20 years, and does not contradict the commitment made in the treaty. 

Bluntly put though, the rejection is entirely due to the governing, uh, non-coalition of GERB, PP-DB and DPS not wanting the referendum to take place simultaneously with the local elections in the autumn, as it would drive Vazrazhdane turnout up, but more importantly, the (potentially) higher turnout for the locals could - hypothetically - drive the referendum participation rate to the point where it would become binding. The Constitutional court will likely reject the rejection, but this will happen in the fall, and by that point it will probably be too late for parliament to schedule the referendum together with the locals. The referendum would have to wait for the EU Parliament election in June 2024, where the turnout will be tragic and the participation threshold will certainly not be met. If the non-coalition parties lose 1-2 MEP seats to Vazrazhdane, well, so be it. As to the expected referendum results, as the best way to oppose it is to abstain, there is little doubt that yes voters [postpone the Euro adoption] will outnumber the no voters by at least 3 to 1.

[snip]

Yeah. Like previously mentioned, a lot of Vazrazhdane-adjacent people are too jaded to vote, otherwise they (and similar parties) would be vastly more represented in parliament. There is, however, also a non-minuscule proportion of anti-EU voters who nevertheless vote GERB or DPS, despite the stated orientations of the parties. The GERB Orbanist wing is currently silenced, but the undercurrent is still there.

Sweden is out because not fulfill the requirements, and Bulgaria can stay out with same not fulfill the requirements, if Bulgaria is already fulfilled the requirements it's a them fault

Thing is, Bulgaria has been under a currency board for a quarter of a century, the lev is pegged to the Euro (previously to the Deutsche Mark) and for all practical purposes, the adoption of the Euro will only mean that Bulgaria will now have a say, however minor, in determining the ECB policies and that the vast amount of currency reserves that the Central Bank keeps to prop up the lev will be freed. The latter is, of course, a major reason why the governing parties want to hurry up with the adoption as soon as 2025. In the leaked PP recording, the EU powers-that-be had apparently promised that as long as the deficit is held under the 3% threshold, the inflation criteria will be overlooked and the Euro will be adopted from 1 January 2025. The governor of the National Bank (just re-elected by the non-coalition) is certainly making all the necessary moves.

[oldtimer]

Ridiculous that this was rejected. This is why constitutions should provide for automatically organizing a binding referendum once the required number of signatures is reached instead of needing approval from parliament first. Not adopting the Euro without having an official opt-out is accepted by the European Commission; Sweden sets the precedent.

Legally there is zero doubt that the signature threshold that makes holding a referendum mandatory has been reached. However, referendums may not be held on 'questions settled in an international treaty' and opponents argue that the commitment Bulgaria made to adopt the Euro when signing the EU accession treaty make it impossible to hold a referendum on the matter. Proponents (Vazrazhdane) argue that the question only postpones the Euro adoption by 20 years, and does not contradict the commitment made in the treaty. 

Bluntly put though, the rejection is entirely due to the governing, uh, non-coalition of GERB, PP-DB and DPS not wanting the referendum to take place simultaneously with the local elections in the autumn, as it would drive Vazrazhdane turnout up, but more importantly, the (potentially) higher turnout for the locals could - hypothetically - drive the referendum participation rate to the point where it would become binding. The Constitutional court will likely reject the rejection, but this will happen in the fall, and by that point it will probably be too late for parliament to schedule the referendum together with the locals. The referendum would have to wait for the EU Parliament election in June 2024, where the turnout will be tragic and the participation threshold will certainly not be met. If the non-coalition parties lose 1-2 MEP seats to Vazrazhdane, well, so be it. As to the expected referendum results, as the best way to oppose it is to abstain, there is little doubt that yes voters [postpone the Euro adoption] will outnumber the no voters by at least 3 to 1.

[snip]

Yeah. Like previously mentioned, a lot of Vazrazhdane-adjacent people are too jaded to vote, otherwise they (and similar parties) would be vastly more represented in parliament. There is, however, also a non-minuscule proportion of anti-EU voters who nevertheless vote GERB or DPS, despite the stated orientations of the parties. The GERB Orbanist wing is currently silenced, but the undercurrent is still there.

Sweden is out because not fulfill the requirements, and Bulgaria can stay out with same not fulfill the requirements, if Bulgaria is already fulfilled the requirements it's a them fault

Thing is, Bulgaria has been under a currency board for a quarter of a century, the lev is pegged to the Euro (previously to the Deutsche Mark) and for all practical purposes, the adoption of the Euro will only mean that Bulgaria will now have a say, however minor, in determining the ECB policies and that the vast amount of currency reserves that the Central Bank keeps to prop up the lev will be freed. The latter is, of course, a major reason why the governing parties want to hurry up with the adoption as soon as 2025. In the leaked PP recording, the EU powers-that-be had apparently promised that as long as the deficit is held under the 3% threshold, the inflation criteria will be overlooked and the Euro will be adopted from 1 January 2025. The governor of the National Bank (just re-elected by the non-coalition) is certainly making all the necessary moves.

Greece supports Bulgaria's entry to the Euro in order to destroy Bulgaria's economy.

In order to get back all those greeks who spend their money on cheap Bulgarian products and services, and have set up front companies in Bulgaria.

Though it's entirely possible those will simply move to other non-euro neighbours like Turkey or North Macedon, instead of returning their money to Greece.

[Beagle]

The locals have been scheduled for late October (with run-offs, where necessary, a week later).  The thread for the locals in 2015/2019, albeit sparse, can serve as a good primer. I may or may not do an effortpost in the month before the elections, once the dust settles and all nominees are clear. So far only Sofia has a somewhat settled race, with the joint nominee of PP-DB-Save Sofia [the organization of Boris Bonev, the independent who shook up the mayoral race last time and gave control over the municipal council to GERB, albeit unwittingly] favored to defeat the GERB candidate in the run-off. As always, every race will be a microcosm of its own and while I would be happy to discuss any specific city, town or village in detail, I very much doubt there is interest in any individual election.

Whether the Denkov (PP) government survives the tension from the locals is an open question, but at this point it is clear that no further parliamentary election will take place in 2023. The non-coalition of GERB, PP-DB and DPS have submitted their joint constitutional amendment proposal. From the electoral viewpoint, the most important change would be a radical transformation in the way caretaker governments are appointed: where now the President has virtually full power to appoint whoever he wants as PM and ministers, under the proposal the only choice would be whether the caretaker PM will be the Governor of the National Bank, the Chief Judge of the Constitutional Court or the Chair of the outgoing parliament. The PM-designate would then select the ministers without further input from the President. The term limits, which were also suggested in the original proposal, have been deleted from the list of amendments. Unless something pretty radical happens, the Denkov government will be allowed to rule by the non-coalition until the amendments come into force, which would be around the turn of the year at the earliest. So no talking about round six, bay-bee, for a while yet.

Even if the Vazrazhdane referendum is approved by the Constitutional court in the first weeks of September, I think the non-coalition will find procedural and practical reasons to not schedule it together with the locals.

BSP have turned in the signatures for a referendum they propose, banning 'gender ideology'* from schools. Since they are barely above the minimum required to even bring the matter for discussion in parliament, it remains to be seen if the proposal will give the Socialists the opportunity to beat the drum as the guardians of traditional morality. Over a quarter of the signatures for the Vazrazhdane referendum turned out to be invalid, the BSP referendum can only suffer an attrition rate of less than 5%, otherwise it will fail at the first hurdle (like the ITN referendum on the establishment of a Presidential regime did earlier this year). Needless to say, even if does enter parliament, the proposal is going exactly nowhere.

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* pasting the wording without comment: Do you support the introduction of a ban on training, education and propaganda dealing with gender reassignment and concepts of gender other than male and female among children and students in the Bulgarian education system?

[Beagle]

OK, with a month to go until the election, an effortpost, but not the effortpost for the locals.

I feel it is needed to take note of two departures and one arrival from/to the Bulgarian political scene, even though only one of those has more than a tangential effect on the elections per se.

Departure 1:

[snip]

One more piece of legislation to which Bulgaria committed before the Eurozone leadership was a revision of the insurance code, making it mandatory for the insurers to pay the claims which arise from liability insurance abroad before contesting them. [...] One of biggest local insurance companies, however, virtually always refuses to pay, crying fraud*. This made the insurance code revision necessary, but a GERB-DPS-BSP-BV ad hoc coalition is making sure that it will not pass in the brief remaining lifetime of the parliament, and even if it did, that it will be toothless.

Coincidentally, this insurance company is owned by a person who embodies the 'Bulgarian model':
- sporting career (karate) - check
- former agent of the Communist State Security - check
- involvement with the organized crime - check
- sponsorship and chairmanship of a sporting federation (karate) - check

The gentleman in question has a few other distinctions:
- he was a business partner of one Boyko Borisov in the 90's
- he has intellectual pretensions as a university lecturer and an economic think-tank leader
- he has survived two spectacular assassination attempts (in 2002 and 2015), as well as organized crime/racketeering/extortion charges, virtually unscathed
- in 2011 he ran for president, gathering some 30 thousand votes, a tad under 1% of the vote

A few weeks ago, this person was assassinated while taking his regular hike in the Sofia environs with his therapist (who was wounded, but survived). You could say third time, unlucky. First assassination of a major political/business figure in over a decade, although I wouldn't have mentioned it if he was not involved with the 'assembly' of the GERB-PP-DB-DPS non-coalition. The exact contribution is up for debate - the deceased had a penchant for wildly exaggerating his own importance - but what is not disputable is that he set up the clandestine meeting (in a female monastery) of the GERB and PP leadership which set the way for the Denkov government.
________________
Departure 2:

[snip]

The meaningful votes [of the 48th Parliament, which was in session for 5 months around the turn of 2023] have been passed with the support of the following parties:

- Electing the chairman of the assembly (after 3 days and complete gridlock, the oldest MP who by law chairs the first meeting got the job permanently; there is a lot to be said about that GERB-er, but that will wait for another time): GERB + DPS + BSP
[...]

The former chairman and the second-to-last GERB MP who had served for them in all parliaments since 2009 was made to resign after getting caught making a crude remark on a hot mic during a special session called to pass a domestic violence law after (yet another) brutal incident.

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The gentleman in question felt that it is a waste of parliamentary time to protect 'little whоres who discover 15 years after the fact that they have been raped'.  He also commiserated with an American director (possibly Harvey Weinstein) who had his life ruined because of this.

Following his departure from the Bulgarian political scene, the now former GERB-er aired his grievances in a number of interviews - his fall was apparently engineered by the US embassy, who are trying to impose their [lack of] culture on the rest of the world; that Boyko Borisov is no longer a friend or a "man's man" because the GERB leader refused to protect his long-time associate etc. In short, the GERB Orbanist wing lost another of its more prominent representatives.
___________
Arrival:

A prologue which is only for the most seasoned and hardened of Bulgarian political observers (both of you):

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For at least two decades, Bulgarian political discourse has been shaped by the morning shows of the national broadcasters, with the 3 guest slots between 07:30 and 08:30, especially the latter one, being highly coveted. Every politician is clamoring for an invite, because this is about the only time that most people would watch political TV - there is no counter-programming. The anchormen* play the role of everyman, feigning outrage, (allegedly) offering rebuttals to blatant lies and, in short, driving the narrative. The anchormen typically score very high in the public trust polls, even though it is common knowledge that they get paid for the questions they don't ask, rather than the ones they do.

For that reason a prominent anchorman - Nikolay Barekov - was chosen as the public face of the 'Bulgaria without Censorship' project of an oligarch banker, who - working in conjunction with the previously mentioned Delyan Peevski - had staked a serious claim to capture vast economic sectors. The meteoric rise and then fall of the political project coincided with the zenith and the subsequent bankruptcy of the oligarch's bank.

* and for some reason it is always men - the female journalists in the role do not last long, in most cases because they prove more difficult to control.

Anton Hekimyan, who succeeded the, eh, controversial Nikolay Barekov as host of the political portion of the most popular Bulgarian TV channel's morning show when Barekov made his jump into politics (the Bulgaria without Censorship abomination, see 2014 and 2017 parliamentary threads for reference), abruptly left his post as the head of the News/Current Affairs department of the above mentioned TV channel. Against all expectations, Boyko Borisov/GERB discarded their chair of the Sofia municipal council, who had been running for the mayorship for the entirety of 2023, in favor of Hekimyan. Some see this as a sign that GERB are throwing in the towel in the capital - Hekimyan, since getting promoted, hasn't been on TV for a few years, and as a double minority*, he does not necessarily appeal to the stereotypical GERB voter. But it is telling that a prominent media figure can simply drop everything at the behest of Borisov and become a GERB candidate for office.

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Bar an extremely small and extremely dark corner of Bulgarian Turks, nobody has a problem with his Armenian heritage - the tiny Armenian community has an oversized presence in communal politics in the larger cities, especially Plovdiv (1st democratically elected mayor post Communism) and Varna (a number of municipal councillors). Whether people will be as tolerant of Hekimyan's proclivity for young muscular companions is an open question. Bulgarian politics is not yet ready for a Wowereit '... und es ist auch gut so' moment, I don't think.

 

A proper preview of the locals is yet to come (probably, unless I am too busy), even though no one cares and no one should. Just note that I'm not going through the effort to make a municipality map with the real mayoral party affiliations this time around. For one, party switchers make a mockery of these efforts - some mayors have gone through 4 parties since 2019*. But also, the statutory framework is such that the mayors are a rather weak executive against the municipal council's legislative power and there are more than a few figurehead mayors, who are hamstrung by their municipal councils, so the map will not present the full picture.

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* Just from the 28 'oblast'/regional capital cities, we have 4 party switches, including the by-election winner in Blagoevgrad, who ran with ITN when they were on the ascendancy, but is with GERB for his re-election

  

[Beagle]

With a couple of days to go, might as well do the preview for the upcoming locals. I had plans to do some visuals and jazz it up a bit, but lack of time means that it will be the usual wall of text. If you are curious about low budget/high spirit parochial campaigns - Bulgarian style, you may be interested in the traditional 'electoral freaks' gallery a DB activist collects on facebook. Many of the jokes require some Bulgarian and/or insider knowledge, but a fair few are visual.

I will skip the procedural part, since this had been described in detail in earlier Local election threads (see pg. 1). It may be worth noting that, at least on paper, there is a substantial increase in contested races. Virtually all non-DPS municipalities can choose between party lists by at least GERB, PP-DB, Vazrazhdane and BSP. DPS-ownedcontrolled municipalities will have less choice, but even there the number of municipality mayor no-contests is down to 2 from 10 last time.

Before delving into the prospects of the various parties, I must acknowledge the elephant not in the room - President Rumen Radev. This was Radev's best chance to establish a local base for his party, be it BSP or another, once he inevitably starts his own political project - by the time of the next locals, he will have been out of office for almost two years. There was a list of prospective Radev-ite mayoral candidates floated pretty openly - 5-6 incumbents, including the 4-term uber-popular GERB mayor of Burgas, with former caretaker ministers and regional (oblast) governors making up the rest. The latter began making the rounds in the media, soliciting business support and other campaign activities, while a rudimentary campaign committee sprang up... until, when the filing deadline came and went, next to nobody had actually filed, while the incumbents returned to the fold (if the fold would have them - see below). Whether this was a trial balloon that never floated, an initiative by a Radev advisor that didn't get the ultimate stamp of approval or simply media speculation, I am unable to say. What it certainly was not, was an attempt to consolidate the anti-GERB vote - Radev keeps snarling at PP-DB on a daily basis.  

A total of 65 parties and coalitions registered for the election (several more, including all but one of the DPS-dissident lists, got rejected for insufficient signatures). A number of non-parliamentary parties have a significant local presence here and there, but in practical terms these are almost always local barons who run under a flag of convenience. For reasons of sanity, only the parliamentary parties will be covered below.

GERB - 2019: ≈ 140 mayors of municipalities, 16* mayors of oblast cities

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due to party switches/co-options, GERB are defending 21 of 27 oblast cities in 2023.

Therein lies the answer why GERB will win the election - they control roughly 60% of municipalities (70% of ethnic Bulgarian majority municipalities), about 80% of their incumbents are running again and, historically, about 80% of incumbents running are re-elected. Like in many other places, Bulgarians are quite prone to saying, 'Bulgaria as a whole might be in trouble, but my town's doing just fine' and, of course, mayors take the credit. The main question marks for GERB are:

- how much ground will they lose, especially in municipal councils - at least 1/3 of their 2019 support, when they were seen as inevitable, is now permanently gone. Unlike in 2019, none of their prominent deselected incumbents are running on their own, but many have thrown their support to other parties;

- how much allegiance can they expect from the number of popular incumbents they have co-opted, from the two popular incumbents who Boyko Borisov had previously 'retired' - i.e. declared that they would not be running for reelection and then went back on his word -  and in a number of cases - from the unpopular incumbents that they have reluctantly backed again, because the mayor serves the local oligarch and they can't afford to upset the apple cart;

Again, though, even in the most catastrophic scenario for GERB - where they lose control of all three most populous cities, dozens of other mayoral places and half of their municipal councilors - they will still have the most votes, the most mayors and the most plausible 'winning' narrative.



PP-DB - 2019: 4 mayors of municipalities, 2* mayors of oblast cities

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Neither of the two is supported by PP/DB this time around. Both were elected by the old Reformist Bloc in 2015 against GERB and re-elected in 2019 with broad 'Old Right' support. However, both courted ITN when Slavi Trifonov's party was on the rise and then were on the list of Radev-ite candidates. Mostly, though, the reason for PP-DB running separate canidates is PP's insistence that it is time for a clean break with the past. This is also the reason why PP-DB are running (hopeless) campaigns against the number of long time 'Old Right' mayors who were co-opted by GERB, where DB used to support them in the past.

PP-DB are even more prone to mood swings than usual. When the coalition was formed, the idea was that as the brave opposition to GERB, they will unite the 2/3rds of the country who no longer can stand Boyko Borisov, gain all major cities and dozens of smaller municipalities. and enter the liberal utopia. Then the non-coalition happened and PP-DB are now bedpartners with GERB and DPS, while enduring a constant barrage from the non-coalition partner aligned media. Online activists began doom-posting and suddenly even Sofia, which virtually everybody has counted as a safe PP-DB gain, has started to look slippery (more about which anon).

There is also an additional factor - 7 or 8 DB-ers got elected to parliament in April on the basis of preference votes, displacing PP-ers higher on the party lists. In 3 major cities DB proposed running those activists, who became MPs because of their local popularity, but PP demurred, saying that the PP party base (to the extent there is one) will not accept another election in which the smaller party takes a much more prominent role. It remains to be seen how successful the PP partisan candidates that the coalition put up will be, but polling is not very encouraging.

Still, PP-DB are looking at major gains, compared with DB in 2019 or the Reformist Bloc in 2015 virtually across the board, but especially in the countryside where the pro-European non-GERB crowd has had zero presence for a decade now: DB currently has less councilors in non-oblast municipalities than the moribund current iteration of the EuroLeft - a 1997-splinter from BSP that has been the personality vehicle of its crook leader for decades.


Vazrazhdane - 2019: 0 mayors

Vazrazhdane are another party which starts from near zero and is going to have a presence in 100+ of municipal councils after the election. They are making a conscious effort to establish themselves throughout the country, running, almost entirely on their own, in some 85% of municipalities (for reference GERB are running in about 95%, PP-DB and BSP in about 80%).

Traditionally, municipal campaigning for the ostensibly 'patriotic' parties was as subtle as a bullhorn. Every sentence boiled down to '[noun]-[verb]-the Gypsies'. Vazrazhdane are making a notable break, toning down the rhetoric and campaigning on platitudes and pie-in-the-sky promises that even their electorate knows will never be fulfilled. Every now and then, they'll sprinkle in a pro-Russian, anti-NATO comment to spice things up.  On the whole, though, they are very much trying to make themselves electable...

... and failing. Polling is scarce and unreliable, but all indicators are that in most places about 50% of those who voted Vazrazhdane for Parliament will choose another party, typically the incumbent or a local 'business' list. This is not to say that Vazrazhdane will lose support in a parliamentary election - on the contrary, they may be even poised to gain a little - but simply the dynamics of local elections do not favor a party which is mostly concerned with 'geopolitics'. Still, Vazrazhdane are well poised to have a candidate in the run-off in Varna, the third largest city, and this time fatigue with the corrupt two-term incumbent may lead to victory unlike the 2019 try by party leader Kostadinov. They will also have hundreds of new municipal councilors, which can serve as a future base for expansion, especially in the small municipalities where their message resonates particularly well.

DPS - 2019: 43 mayors, 1* mayor of oblast city

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Who, after 20 years in office, was deselected by the party leadership. As mentioned previously, DPS are ruthless when it comes to potential challengers to the top.

The DPS local battles are more of a family feud, mostly behind the scenes, hidden from the prying eyes of Bulgarian media, which, by the way, has an acute shortage of Turkish-speaking journalists. All I can offer is a telling anecdote from one of the DPS-ownedcontrolled municipalities I worked with professionally. The party's emeritus leader, Dogan, fancies himself a forward-thinking visionary. This translates into his youth movement being lavishly funded, with members receiving scholarships and opportunities to study and work in Western Europe. Those who come back are given party-owned appointments with a quick path to promotion to the higher political echelons. Well, in that municipality at least, none out of the 5 20-somethings that were in that position after the 2019 election will still be there after 2023. Turns out that they exhibit independence and this is unacceptable.

BSP - 2019: 48 mayors, 4* mayors of oblast cities

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Of which they are defending only two, and even that requires multiple asterixes:
- One incumbent is retiring. BSP is endorsing one of his deputies, another deputy is running for PP-DB, another is the DPS candidate;
- One incumbent is running again on the BSP line - *against* the leadership wishes, as he was expelled from the party earlier for Radev-ite tendencies. However, the local party organization rebelled, refused to accept the Sofia-proposed nominee and re-nominated the incumbent, following which the leadership relented;
- One incumbent - who may stake a claim for the most popular mayor in the country - was also expelled and became a vociferous critic of Ninova. Now he is running for GERB. The local BSP chairman is running for BSP, but virtually all members will vote for the incumbent;
- One incumbent, the previously mentioned ex-mayor of Blagoevgrad, was removed from office on a techhicality and failed to make the run-off in the by-election by a few thousand votes. Now he is running again, but BSP refused to endorse him.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party, ladies and gentlemen ^

Given that they are no longer the sole alternative to GERB in many municipalities, BSP are expected to fall further - definitely behind DPS in number of mayorships. There may be a few bright spots here and there (with Sofia, surprisingly, potentially being one), but on the whole, their decline on the local level will continue unabated. Given everything that has transpired in the last 4 years, though, this may please party leader Ninova, who is more scared of potential challengers within the party than from any external threat.


ITN - 2019: 0 mayors

ITN are blatantly taking advantage of the privileges afforded to a parliamentary party, even though they barely scraped the entry. Their campaign is designed for maximum publicity.  Running MPs in major cities and joining opportunistic coalitions elsewhere, they do not realistically expect any mayorships. However, they will make their way into the major cities municipal councils, where the threshold is just 2%, and that suits them just fine - as we now know, ITN do not want to shoulder any responsibility.

Race for Sofia: Finally, a few words for the capital - again, if you are interested in any other place, feel free to ask, but Sofia has the population of the next 9 cities combined, is the place foreigners are likeliest to know and has by far the most prominent mayor in the country. The GERB incumbent is retiring after 14 years - she succeeded Boyko Borisov after he became PM and, while many find faults in her policies and leadership skills, she was and remains remarkably popular because of her personal touch and relative integrity, a rarity for a big city mayor. Few would dispute that the city has improved in the past 14 years. Of course, it helps that Sofia has a major and very public infrastructure project that can take unlimited amount of European funds - the Sofia metro/underground. At some point EU funding programs began inserting stipulations that, if the original projects stall, Bulgaria can not redirect the funds to the Sofia metro... but this hasn't stopped us from trying and, apparently, succeeding.

Anyway, given the results of the last parliamentary elections and the general fatigue with GERB,  PP-DB were always considered the strong favorites to capture the Sofia mayorship, especially after Save Sofia, the Boris Bonev-headed good-governance organization, joined up. However, their joint nominee is a tech bro who, after selling up his company for a price in the low 9 figures, found himself twiddling his thumbs. Dalliances in philanthropy and IT education apparently only made him eager for public service and so he started throwing money at the PP, DB and Save Sofia leaderships. Now, this is quite possibly the only way the parties could be united, however there is a catch - the nominee is painfully politically inexperienced (thus heavily reliant on his pricey consultants), stiff and rather boring. Even his campaign video has Bonev doing most of the talking. The nominee's family history - he basically comes from Communist party nobility, with both his parents serving the State Security repressive apparatus - turned off a lot of the 'Old Right' still with DB. In short, he exemplifies the type of candidate who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

However, the GERB nominee - the ex TV-anchorman turned TV executive - is also clearly out of his depth. Incompetent, hubristic and a surprisingly poor public speaker without his earpiece, he finds himself in a task that a much more skillful politician would find hard to resolve: how to balance promises of improvements without antagonizing GERB and its patronage network. This has opened a window for the BSP* nominee - a labor union leader, who is running a populist campaign - and her support has practically doubled over the past month. Of course, starting from a very low point, but it still means that she has a chance of catching the GERB nominee and enter the run-off, which is certain.

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She was not Ninova's choice. However, the Sofia BSP organization recruited her, on the other hand to prevent a loss for the local leader (Ninova wanted him to run, so that she could push him out after the inevitable defeat), but also because she brought in Levicata, Ataka and a bunch of other Russophile parties

In the run-off, the smart money would still be on the PP-DB-Save Sofia candidate:
- with GERB the narrative would be a 'change vs. status-quo' scenario - and people overwhelmingly prefer change;
- with BSP the narrative would be 'Right vs Left'/'Pro-European vs Pro-Russian' scenario - and Sofia overwhelmingly prefers the former;

Still, the Sofia mayorship is not in the bag for PP-DB as it appeared a few months ago.

The municipal council should see PP-DB-Save Sofia have a comfortable lead, but still they will require one major (GERB or BSP) or two minor allies for a majority. A lot will depend on which parties make it. Presumably, the first choice for PP-DB-Save Sofia will be the alternative 'Old Right' list, but the math will probably not work out for a majority. There are at least two other lists that promise to fight for the same things and vote the same way PP-DB do, but not in a coalition with GERB. However, they are unlikely to make it over the threshold. The betting markets (yes, now we also have an active betting market on the elections) for the 61-member Sofia municipal council expect the following seat distribution:


PP-DB-SS: 23-25
GERB : 18-21
BSP: 11-13
Vazrazhdane: 7-8
'Old Right' List: 2-3
ITN: 2


 

[RGM2609]

You seemed to imply that some of the "Old right" is not supportive of DB anymore, presumably because of the (non)coalition. Well, where else could those voters go? Is there some sort of movement forming in that electoral space to oppose PP-DB? (Apparently there are such parties running now in Sofia, but I am thinking on the national level)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Could you make a post describing the sociopolitical geography of Sofia and which parties poll better in which districts (and whether this mayoral election could see changes in that respect)? I have a vague knowledge that the centre is wealthier and more liberal, unsurprisingly, but I'm sure the details are a lot more complex.

[Beagle]

You seemed to imply that some of the "Old right" is not supportive of DB anymore, presumably because of the (non)coalition. Well, where else could those voters go? Is there some sort of movement forming in that electoral space to oppose PP-DB? (Apparently there are such parties running now in Sofia, but I am thinking on the national level)

The 'Old Right' moniker I use collectively to describe the various remnants of the old SDS that have not been subsumed by GERB is composed of several sub-groups. The two lists that are likely to remain (significantly) under the threshold are indeed people who walked out over the GERB/DPS non-coalition. However, the alternative 'Old Right' list that is likely to make it consists virtually entirely of the old 'Old Right' - the descendants of the pre-WWII elite, the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those persecuted by the Communists (see description of Sofia city center voters below). To them, the earlier coalition with BSP in the Kiril Petkov government was a nightmare and voting for a son of not simply Communist officials, but State Security torturers, is unthinkable.

Of course, there is a several-orders-of-magnitudes larger group - probably the plurality of Bulgarian voters - who are anti-GERB and anti-BSP, and who gave their votes to the 'parties of the protest' in the first two 2021 elections, overwhelmingly backed PP in November 2021, slightly less so in 2022 and still mostly supported PP-DB in 2023. Those have indeed left in droves following the 'assembly' of the non-coalition, but mostly to the ranks of non-voters, at least so far.

As to the old 'Old Right', the party the current alternative list has coalesced around is tailor-made for them - it was founded by a former DSB/Reformist Block co-leader and minister in the Borisov II government, who distanced from his party when they left the government over the failed judicial reform and, furthermore, when they began entertaining cooperation with the BSP arch-enemy. The last straw was the coalition with liberal Da Bulgaria and the Greens to form DB. So he founded his Conservative Unity of Democrats party, explaining to all and sundry that socialism and liberalism are both roads to perdition, in particular railing against ostensibly 'right' DB leaders taking part in gay pride parades. This party has been taking part in all elections and, if there was a price for consistency, they would be in the running - receiving 0.29%, 0.29%, 0.43% (in a coalition with the former GERB second-in-command), 0.20% and 0.31%.  

EDIT: I thought it may be more enlightening to say a few words about the mayoral candidate of the 'Old Right'. He is a physics professor (and ex basketball player), who served in 4 consecutive Sofia municipal councils from 1999 to 2014, originally for SDS, but jumping to DSB when that party was founded. As the longest serving councilor in the group, he lead the SDS/DSB grouping from 2011 until he got elected to Parliament for the Reformist Bloc in 2014. When nobody from the RB emerged to run against Yordanka Fandakova at the height of her popularity in the 2015 locals, he volunteered, getting predictably trounced, although managing to beat the BSP candidate. However, the aftermath embittered him - he received just 9% of the vote, while the RB municipal council list received 17% and there were a few acidic comments about candidate quality. He refused to follow DSB into DB and in 2019 he endorsed his former opponent from GERB and in 2021 he was among the intellectuals who nominated the GERB candidate for president. So yes, he is very much a part of the 'Old Right' backlash against PP-DB.

Could you make a post describing the sociopolitical geography of Sofia and which parties poll better in which districts (and whether this mayoral election could see changes in that respect)? I have a vague knowledge that the centre is wealthier and more liberal, unsurprisingly, but I'm sure the details are a lot more complex.

Yeah, I already did. OK, it may be 5 years old, but not that much has changed, other than a general increase in income, living standards and, especially, housing costs throughout the city. The budget, which was almost 1 billion € then is 1.4 billion € now. I am quote-within-quoting myself in order to also show the 2019 district mayor map.

Sofia saw a closer than usual mayoral contest, and while the candidate of the 'Old Right' and independent Boris Bonev (see above) both had respectable results, in reality only two ladies had a chance to be elected and govern the city and its budget of almost 1 billion €: incumbent Fandakova (GERB-SDS) and national ombudsman (and former BSP MP) Manolova - independent, who was endorsed by BSP, all the BSP splinter parties, a bunch of small center and center-right parties and several civic organizations. As Fandakova is inoffensive and, extraordinarily for a Bulgarian politician, not to mention a big city mayor, has a squeaky-clean reputation, while Manolova gained a lot of popularity for her work as ombudsman, this contest was viewed as a heavyweight bout between GERB and the joint opposition. Public polling had indicated a virtual tie at the start of the campaign, but gradually Sofia reverted to its center-right form and by election day it was clear that Fandakova was in the lead, but also that there was going to be a run-off, in which the 'Old Right' vote would be crucial - would they choose Fandakova, who is a close associate of Boyko Borisov and would be a continuation of the dreaded status quo, or go for change with Manolova, who, however, is tainted by her long career as Socialist parlamentarian and support of more than a few of the corrupt laws passed by parliaments between 2005 and 2014. Both candidates made a play for Democratic Bulgaria voters, with Fandakova making several promises to the party leaders, while Manolova strenuously avoided anything which would have linked her to the BSP. DB declared neutrality in the run-off. I can't tell how many of their voters went for either Fandakova or Manolova (I personally voted 'I don't support any candidate'), but it is pretty clear from the district mayor run-offs that all of them turned out. In the end, Fandakova won by 5%, which was significantly lower than both the public polling and the exit polls. Symbolically, she was held under 50% by the combined Manolova-NOTA vote.

After the district run-offs (which took place in a record 22 of Sofia's districts), the following picture emerged:



For completeness, here are the 2007 and 2015 results (GERB had abolished district elections in 2011):



For more detail about the districts, I will quote myself from almost two years ago:

answer your question, there’s two things I need to point out first:

- under communism, it was illegal to sell residential properties. Since the population of the city tripled in that time, the majority of Sofia residents had to go through the arduous procedure of getting an apartment in a state-built apartment block (from the 1960s onwards – a panel-built high rise). In general, the blocks were settled at the same time by people of the same generation – usually young families with a toddler or two.
 
- these days Bulgaria is on top  of the chart for private home ownership in Europe and people are not on the move very often. This does not, however, account for social mobility – so while the fortunes of the inhabitants in the block may have differed after 1989, many stayed put, and you’d have families who struggle making ends meet living right next to (or under, or above) affluent middle class neighbors.

While the apartment blocks may be shoddily built, the positive effect is that there is a degree of cohesion and homogeneity which is not very common for the West.  Consequently there isn’t that much of a difference politically between the various parts of Sofia. In every election since 1995, one major and one or two minor center-right pro-European parties have received between 50 and 75% of the Sofia vote between them, with the BSP generally moving progressively downward from the 30s to the lower teens and the remainder mostly going to ‘fad’ parties. For many reasons the nationalists have not found Sofia a fertile ground and DPS has been non-existent here.

* Pedantic note: every single word in the previous paragraph can be disputed, but it is a good enough generalization.

[...]


The Greater Sofia municipality includes a lot of areas that can be charitably described as ‘exurbs’, but are, for the most part, fairly agricultural villages. For our purposes, the results in districts numbered 20-24 are irrelevant, except it may be worth mentioning that district 24 – the town of Bankya – is where Boyko Borisov is from and where he still resides.

District 17 is at the foothills of Vitosha mountain (it also includes a part of the mountain itself and a couple of villages). The urban part of the district is probably the wealthiest area in the city (and quite possibly - the country), it’s where several gated communities have sprung up and where a substantial part of the residential buildings are single family new builds. The residents here are mostly the ‘winners’ from the post-1989 changes.

The proximity to the mountain, among other things, also makes districts 2, 10 and 9 in the south of the city highly desirable. They saw a construction boom in recent years (multi-family-residentials only) and have suffered for it, as the infrastructure was built with far fewer inhabitants in mind, so they have a lot of gripes with the municipality.

District 8 (and the southwestern part of district 7) are also considered ‘tony’ neighborhoods, however while the districts listed so far are GERB-‘Old Right’ battlegrounds, here the BSP still has a presence. The reason is that this part of the city was the preserve of the ‘Red bourgeoisie’ - it was built up in the 60’s and 70’s as the place where the mid- to higher echelons of the Communist party would reside with their families (and also where most embassies are). However, like everywhere else in Sofia, the BSP has been in decline here.

District 16 is the ‘Student city’ and while student dormitories are no longer the only form of residential construction here, there are not many permanent residents. GERB generally wins pretty comfortably.

Districts 1, 4, and the part of 3 where I live form the core of the city center – it’s where virtually all institutions and tourist attractions are located and where most of the buildings pre-date 1960. While wealthier and better educated than most of the rest of the city as a whole – both indicators of higher performance for the RB and its predecessors – what gives the city center its character as the last ‘Old Right’ stronghold are the descendants of the pre-1944 elite, whose houses were nationalized after the Communist takeover and who got them restored due to the laws the UDF passed in the 1990s.

The remainder of district 3, alongside districts 11 and 12, are places where most of the residential construction took place in the 50’s and 60’s, so the residents skew older, which is consistent with the better BSP performance there – but under normal conditions GERB has no problem winning, as they dominate among people aged 30-59.

The remainder of district 7, districts 18, 14, 5 and 13 – in that order – are increasingly industrial, grimy and poor areas, where the residences tend to be high-rises mixed with pre-1960 one or two storey houses. GERB usually romps to victory here, as Borisov’s paternalistic/macho style is quite popular among the residents. However, it’s also where the nationalist and clientelist parties (such as RZS in 2005 and ‘Bulgaria without Censorship’ in 2014) find their best results.

District 15 – Lyulin – is the largest residential complex and a city within the city. It is not possible to put all its 150 000 residents under one common denominator. As the area with the most ‘first generation Sofians’, it tends to follow the national trends more closely than the rest of the city. GERB usually win here by a huge margin, but that’s because three or four other parties bunch up around the 10% mark.

District 19 – Mladost – is Lyulin’s counterpart in the southeast of the city and usually the two districts mirror their results. However, protests against the overbuilding of the neighborhood culminated in a landslide victory for an independent candidate (supported by the Greens and one other minor party) in the 2016 by-election for district mayor, after the previous mayor resigned on Borisov’s orders after being implicated in a conflict of interest.

I just need to point out a few peculiarities of the 2019 district mayor election:
- As can be seen, BSP voters overwhelmingly backed 'Old Right' mayors in the run-offs, so that 8 out the 10 DB candidates in run-offs won, even though only district 1 had DB in the lead after the 1st round. This was not reciprocated by the DB voters, so out of the 10 GERB-BSP run-offs, BSP-backed candidates won in only two - 8, where the ancestral Socialism is still alive (+ the BSP candidate was stellar and the GERB incumbent - mediocre) and 19, where the candidate of the civic coalition that won the special election back in 2016, endorsed by the BSP, defeated the Martha Coakley of Sofia politics;
- In district 17, the incumbent mayor, who ran for the Reformist Bloc (thus the 'Old Right') 4 years ago ran for GERB now, and due to his personal popularity and wealth weathered the DB assault. His colleague from district 2 similarly ran for GERB-SDS this time, but in an Old Right faction duel, he was beaten comprehensively in the run-off. The Reformist Bloc mayor in district 4 ran for the BSP, but was shut out of the run-off;
- District 23 was won by a genuine independent - since the mayor is a personal acquaintance, I can tell more, but in brief, he is the mayor of a village in the district, who had GERB's support in 2015 (but would have won the village even without it), who grew tired of the incompetent district administration and ran a maverick campaign;
- District 22 is not an 'Old Right' mayor from Democratic Bulgaria, but a SDS one, who ran as an independent and was cross-endorsed by GERB, DB and VMRO. She was one of only 2 district mayors who was not forced into a run-off, the other being the mayor of GERB home turf - district 24.

Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

[RGM2609]

Are you considering supporting some sort of PP-DB splinter?

[Beagle]

Are you considering supporting some sort of PP-DB splinter?

Nah. I am instinctively distrustful of splinters, having grown up in a time where they were proliferating like rabbits. Like I said when asked to help the independent campaign for Sofia councilor of a lawyer* I am acquainted with, if you can't convince the exceedingly small group of mostly like-minded individuals within the particular 'Old Right' faction, I am very skeptical about your ability to convince the public at large.

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* a long-time prominent activist for judicial reform, he served as a Reformist Block MP (2014-2017) and has been an unsuccessful DB candidate for parliament several times since. His reason for splitting was that the PP-DB leadership imposed the Sofia nominee without a primary.

Some breaking news in the past hours - the Radev-appointed head of one of the security services submitted an urgent report how the integrity of the vote by machine is being compromised. Apparently a PP-DB deputy minister of electronic government had clandestinely collected the system code which was used to generate the cryptographic hash. At this hour all non PP-DB parties are howling in outrage, demanding the cancellation of vote by machine, if not outright postponing the election, the arrest of the deputy minister in question, the resignation of the minister(s) and/or prosecuting the deputy minister/the minister or the entire government for treason.

Now, how exactly the vote will be compromised remains unexplained, since the machine prints out the voters' choice and they can - presumably - see if it suddenly prints out a PP-DB ballot instead of a Vazrazhdane one. In the 3 elections the machines have been used so far, while they have been other issues, afaik there has never been an instance where a voter has claimed that the printout differs from their actual choice. Counting the votes for the past two elections has meant counting the printouts.

Currently the electoral commission is in an urgent meeting and I fully expect them to cancel the vote by machine and move to all paper ballots. Paper ballots, of course, have the distinct advantage of being easy to invalidate and have been used so massively in the past local elections, where fewer votes make the difference, with some places reporting 30% or more of invalid votes. So this will be rather convenient for GERB and DPS.

[GMantis]

Some breaking news in the past hours - the Radev-appointed head of one of the security services submitted an urgent report how the integrity of the vote by machine is being compromised. Apparently a PP-DB deputy minister of electronic government had clandestinely collected the system code which was used to generate the cryptographic hash. At this hour all non PP-DB parties are howling in outrage, demanding the cancellation of vote by machine, if not outright postponing the election, the arrest of the deputy minister in question, the resignation of the minister(s) and/or prosecuting the deputy minister/the minister or the entire government for treason.

Now, how exactly the vote will be compromised remains unexplained, since the machine prints out the voters' choice and they can - presumably - see if it suddenly prints out a PP-DB ballot instead of a Vazrazhdane one. In the 3 elections the machines have been used so far, while they have been other issues, afaik there has never been an instance where a voter has claimed that the printout differs from their actual choice. Counting the votes for the past two elections has meant counting the printouts.

I'd be inclined to agree with you if it wasn't for the hysterical reaction of PP-DB at the decision by the Electoral Commission. Even the slightest irregularity would make the legitimacy of the election questionable and this is a significantly worse case (the deputy minister certainly should be prosecuted for his blatant violation of election laws), so it would be interest of every political party to suspend machine voting until all suspicions can be cleared up. So why is PP-DB so adamant at risking the integrity of the elections for the minimal benefits of machine voting? Why so much opposition to investigating this matter -  the prime minister refused to even publish the report of the security services? Altogether this behavior doesn't exactly put them in a favorable light, to put it mildly.

A plausible method of manipulating votes that I've heard suggested is that by controlling the machines one could find out the exact time a vote has been cast, thus allowing voters to be linked to be identified (since there are cameras in the voting sections). Subsequently voters can be cajoled into voting for the "right" party by making it known that their votes can be identified.

Currently the electoral commission is in an urgent meeting and I fully expect them to cancel the vote by machine and move to all paper ballots. Paper ballots, of course, have the distinct advantage of being easy to invalidate and have been used so massively in the past local elections, where fewer votes make the difference, with some places reporting 30% or more of invalid votes. So this will be rather convenient for GERB and DPS.

While invalid voting is lower with machine voting, invalid voting was not particularly high with paper voting. For example, it was around 2% in the last election held using mainly paper ballots (April 2021) and with a tendency to decline (from around 6% in 2017). The much higher percentage of invalid votes at local elections may well be due to the specifics of the more complex voting system at local election and so unlikely to be improved by machine voting.

[Beagle]

I'd be inclined to agree with you if it wasn't for the hysterical reaction of PP-DB at the decision by the Electoral Commission. Even the slightest irregularity would make the legitimacy of the election questionable and this is a significantly worse case (the deputy minister certainly should be prosecuted for his blatant violation of election laws), so it would be interest of every political party to suspend machine voting until all suspicions can be cleared up. So why is PP-DB so adamant at risking the integrity of the elections for the minimal benefits of machine voting? Why so much opposition to investigating this matter -  the prime minister refused to even publish the report of the security services? Altogether this behavior doesn't exactly put them in a favorable light, to put it mildly.

A plausible method of manipulating votes that I've heard suggested is that by controlling the machines one could find out the exact time a vote has been cast, thus allowing voters to be linked to be identified (since there are cameras in the voting sections). Subsequently voters can be cajoled into voting for the "right" party by making it known that their votes can be identified.

Hogwash.

I grant you that no plausible reason has been stated so far why the deputy minister in question needed to collect the system code clandestinely. However, I find the PP-DB response rather justified in the face of allegations of treason (Kostadin Kostadinov), coup (Slavi T Trifonov), election theft GERB parliamentary leader Atanasova, among others and fraud (too numerous to mention). After all, in a party that represents the majority of the IT sector in Bulgaria, people were understandably miffed that somehow a copy of the source code was implanted with magical powers, given that the source code is given to all the parties participating in the elections for examination. It is precisely the incompetent speculation that infuriates them so much, since nobody has presented anything even remotely resembling a technically coherent explanation how the alleged fraud is supposed to occur, other than 'the machine prints out PP-DB receipts without corresponding input' - which, even for the depths that Bulgarian conspiratorial thinking plumbs, is too stupid to discuss.

Although I do not practice criminal law, I would be happy to discuss art. 169 of the Bulgarian Penal Code and where you see the criminal activity by the deputy minister, but maybe this discussion will be too arcane for this forum.

Cameras are supposed to be turned off in the schools during the voting day (which is a decision for the municipal electoral commission - the example is from the last election, I couldn't find any news about this one). I began writing up a long and elaborate plan how the proposed scenario can be made to work - and I can reproduce it upon request - but in short, it would require colossal amounts of effort, conspiracy and complicit officials to find out how an individual voted - and that, at the earliest, after the second round has concluded.  

While invalid voting is lower with machine voting, invalid voting was not particularly high with paper voting. For example, it was around 2% in the last election held using mainly paper ballots (April 2021) and with a tendency to decline (from around 6% in 2017). The much higher percentage of invalid votes at local elections may well be due to the specifics of the more complex voting system at local election and so unlikely to be improved by machine voting.

Well, thank you for proving my point. After all, the present paper ballot form has been exactly the same since the 2019 local election - with the parties listed in a column to the left with squared number boxes starting from 1, and the preference votes in two or three rows to the right, with rounded number boxes starting from 101. Are you really suggesting that having 15% *nationwide* invalid votes in the 2019 locals, compared to 2% in the parliamentary election two years later is down to ballot design? Did the voters of previously mentioned Brezovo (where BSP lost the election for the first time since 1991) get that much more competent so that the invalid votes fell from 1,028 (28.95% of the total) in 2019 to 121 (4.02% of the total) in the parliamentary election? Why would Borovan get 1,071 invalid votes (30.42%) in 2019 and 109* (4.6%) in 2021?

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29 of that total in just one of the 14 precincts in the municipality, where the commission must have been particularly pedantic

 
__________

On a separate note, exhibit one million and whatever how Sofia is very different from Bulgaria - the Sofia Municipal Electoral Commission went rogue and an impromptu GERB-PP-DB-BSP coalition decided to nullify the Central Electoral Commission's decision about all-paper voting. The Municipal Commission came out with a scathing resolution describing the various faults in the Central Commission's procedure and reasoning, and instructed the local administration to distribute the machines to the individual precinct commissions, basically saying the countryside can vote however they please, but Sofia will vote by machine. Of course, this rebellion was quickly put down. Still, given the histrionics by GERB leaders earlier, it was rather weird to see their representatives fight for the machine vote.

[GMantis]

I'd be inclined to agree with you if it wasn't for the hysterical reaction of PP-DB at the decision by the Electoral Commission. Even the slightest irregularity would make the legitimacy of the election questionable and this is a significantly worse case (the deputy minister certainly should be prosecuted for his blatant violation of election laws), so it would be interest of every political party to suspend machine voting until all suspicions can be cleared up. So why is PP-DB so adamant at risking the integrity of the elections for the minimal benefits of machine voting? Why so much opposition to investigating this matter -  the prime minister refused to even publish the report of the security services? Altogether this behavior doesn't exactly put them in a favorable light, to put it mildly.

A plausible method of manipulating votes that I've heard suggested is that by controlling the machines one could find out the exact time a vote has been cast, thus allowing voters to be linked to be identified (since there are cameras in the voting sections). Subsequently voters can be cajoled into voting for the "right" party by making it known that their votes can be identified.

Hogwash.

I grant you that no plausible reason has been stated so far why the deputy minister in question needed to collect the system code clandestinely. However, I find the PP-DB response rather justified in the face of allegations of treason (Kostadin Kostadinov), coup (Slavi T Trifonov), election theft GERB parliamentary leader Atanasova, among others and fraud (too numerous to mention). After all, in a party that represents the majority of the IT sector in Bulgaria, people were understandably miffed that somehow a copy of the source code was implanted with magical powers, given that the source code is given to all the parties participating in the elections for examination. It is precisely the incompetent speculation that infuriates them so much, since nobody has presented anything even remotely resembling a technically coherent explanation how the alleged fraud is supposed to occur, other than 'the machine prints out PP-DB receipts without corresponding input' - which, even for the depths that Bulgarian conspiratorial thinking plumbs, is too stupid to discuss.

I also don't see any plausible method of manipulating the votes (the scenario I suggested is certainly far-fetched). But it's not at all justified for the government to react to a legitimate investigation by the security service on such a vital matter as election integrity as if it were a conspiracy against the government. Especially when they don't actually have good arguments to counter DANS' claims. As you yourself say, there's no plausible explanation for the deputy minister's actions. And why refuse to publish the report of the investigation (which apparently contains more serious allegations than just copying the code)? If the report is manipulated, why not explain how it's manipulated rather than hide it from the public? And all of this to protect a very recently introduced method of voting that has hardly any benefit and without which elections were held without any significant problems for thirty years. Basically, the government are doing a very good impression of acting guilty even if they're innocent, which of course has the effect of raising suspicion against them. Certainly the opposition may have gone overboard in their reaction, but it's hardly unexpected with such a golden opportunity before them.

Although I do not practice criminal law, I would be happy to discuss art. 169 of the Bulgarian Penal Code and where you see the criminal activity by the deputy minister, but maybe this discussion will be too arcane for this forum.

I'm not a lawyer, but I have the distinct recollection that attempting to violate the law is also prosecuted. Whether what he did counts as an attempt to interfere with elections is certainly debatable, but it's definitely something that should be investigated. At the very least he should resign, since even if he had no malign motives, he violated the electoral regulations in a way that compromised the security of the elections.

While invalid voting is lower with machine voting, invalid voting was not particularly high with paper voting. For example, it was around 2% in the last election held using mainly paper ballots (April 2021) and with a tendency to decline (from around 6% in 2017). The much higher percentage of invalid votes at local elections may well be due to the specifics of the more complex voting system at local election and so unlikely to be improved by machine voting.

Well, thank you for proving my point. After all, the present paper ballot form has been exactly the same since the 2019 local election - with the parties listed in a column to the left with squared number boxes starting from 1, and the preference votes in two or three rows to the right, with rounded number boxes starting from 101. Are you really suggesting that having 15% *nationwide* invalid votes in the 2019 locals, compared to 2% in the parliamentary election two years later is down to ballot design? Did the voters of previously mentioned Brezovo (where BSP lost the election for the first time since 1991) get that much more competent so that the invalid votes fell from 1,028 (28.95% of the total) in 2019 to 121 (4.02% of the total) in the parliamentary election? Why would Borovan get 1,071 invalid votes (30.42%) in 2019 and 109* (4.6%) in 2021?

I agree that the discrepancy isn't due to the ballot design. However, it's also not due to the voting method - the April 2021 election still overwhelmingly used paper ballots. Therefore, the only plausible conclusion is that the type of election was the reason for the discrepancy (for example, the more complicated elections could lead to voter confusion), meaning that it's not unlikely that voting by machine could lead to significant invalid voting as well.

[RGM2609]

Exit poll for Sofia mayoral race:

Vasil Terziev (PP-DB-SS) - 38.8%
Vanya Grigorova (BSP) - 19.1%
Anton Hekimyan (GERB-SDS) - 17.0%
Deyan Nikolov ("Revival") - 7.1%
Vili Lilkov (KOD) - 5.3%
Ivaylo Valchev (ITN) - 2.9%
Radostin Vassilev (independent) - 2.6%

So GERB's TV trumpet candidate embarrasses himself and likely gets locked out of the runoff, overtaken by the BSP which isn't in its best shape at the moment, especially not in Sofia. And PP-DB actually gets a...decent result given the circumstances?

[GMantis]

Exit poll for Sofia mayoral race:

Vasil Terziev (PP-DB-SS) - 38.8%
Vanya Grigorova (BSP) - 19.1%
Anton Hekimyan (GERB-SDS) - 17.0%
Deyan Nikolov ("Revival") - 7.1%
Vili Lilkov (KOD) - 5.3%
Ivaylo Valchev (ITN) - 2.9%
Radostin Vassilev (independent) - 2.6%

So GERB's TV trumpet candidate embarrasses himself and likely gets locked out of the runoff, overtaken by the BSP which isn't in its best shape at the moment, especially not in Sofia. And PP-DB actually gets a...decent result given the circumstances?

It's BSP that had the greatest improvement, since they got just 7% in Sofia at the parliamentary election. Of course part of that is Grigorova's personal popularity, but they've done well in the election for the municipal council (about 13% according to the exit polls).

[RGM2609]

Indeed, BSP did well (though I reckon they wouldn't have had a chance to reach the runoff if GERB had a good candidate?). I was actually wondering what makes Grigorova so popular, is it just being charismatic in contrast to the other candidates?

[GMantis]

Indeed, BSP did well (though I reckon they wouldn't have had a chance to reach the runoff if GERB had a good candidate?). I was actually wondering what makes Grigorova so popular, is it just being charismatic in contrast to the other candidates?

First of all, she's an independent figure that hasn't been involved with the unpopular BSP. Second, she's been a somewhat notable trade union activist and leader in several popular causes (for example demonstrations against shale gas exploration) and stands apart from other candidates in her outspoken left-wing views.