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

[Beagle]

And is Trifonov harder in the Macedonian question? I have seen his video about Macedonia where he made many jokes about Macedonian language and so on. Or is this the mainstream in BG?

Ha, you've seen something I haven't - may I ask why? As to the latter question, even though I haven't seen the video in question, I'm pretty sure he did express a viewpoint that is prevalent in Bulgarian discourse. As to the first, I was about to say that we have no clue (again), as the words 'Macedonia' appear nowhere in the party's platform. However, Trifonov posted the following last year on his personal fb page:

The proposal to the Macedonians, oops ... sorry - the North Macedonians, that if they recognize their historical Bulgarian roots, we shall recognize the current state of affairs, and the current state of affairs is to recognize the existence of a Macedonian language and nation - is the best proposal that they can get.

And this is taking into account that their entire current statelet's premise is anti-Bulgarian rhetoric, calling us Bulgarians - Gypsies and Tatars.

Dear Macedonians, excuse me - North Macedonians, I will get used to it, but I need time - to be honest, I am a very tolerant person, but everything has its limits. I see you wait for Bulgarian passports, I see you come to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and the Bulgarian resorts, I see your children come to study at Bulgarian universities, I see you claim that "Jovano, Jovanke" is a Macedonian, sorry, North Macedonian song, and I wonder - people, why? Aren't we gypsies and Tatars? So, you want gypsy passports, you come to the Tatar Black Sea, you study at gypsy universities and "Jovano, Jovanke"* is, after all, a gypsy song (I apologize to the gypsies - these people that are so emotional and displaced all over the world).

So North Macedonia will not get a better compromise and if it does not recognize its historical Bulgarian roots, it will exist outside the European Union. And that's on that!

So, uh... I guess he's at least as hard as the outgoing government?

* Trifonov has recorded the most popular Bulgarian take on that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqCqbd8-4Xc

[PetrSokol]

I have seen this Trifonov´s video about Macedonia.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLh95PYkdvY&ab_channel=anaxidotus

It is older, but for me interesting how he react to the Macedonina language etc....

[PetrSokol]

And three "last" questions about Trifonov:

is he playinf the anti-covid card and anti-vax card? Ihave read somewhere his comparison with the Romania AUR?

Is any oligarch or a strong economic group behind him? His campaign had to cost something....

I have read also in the foreign press that he know politics very weel, but it seems to me not very likely if he was so long the face of the political talkshow...

[Beagle]

Very amusing, much droll sketch. And yes, that is typical Slavi Trifonov humor. 'Барам' is a verb that means 'to request; to require; to seek [both to search for something and for permission]' in Macedonian, but in modern Bulgarian it is 'to fondle' - almost always sexually. Endless mirth ensues.

Keep the questions coming if you have them.

is he playinf the anti-covid card and anti-vax card? Ihave read somewhere his comparison with the Romania AUR?

ITN were by far the most covid-lockdown skeptical of the main parties, that much is true. Their chief spokesman on the issue - an immunology professor who ran for president back in 2011 and got 0.18% - made a point of photographing himself wearing, um, female lingerie in place of a mask to protest the mandate. And similarly to AUR, social media was the most fertile ground for campaigning on the issue - people did seem to think that voting for ITN would bring an end to restrictions, although this was never publicly stated afaik.

However, ITN are significantly more moderate than AUR, their [public] position could be summarized as 'Covid is a slightly more contagious and deadlier flu, people should take protection, but it is up to their personal responsibility and reason to decide what'. Not 'Covid is a conspiracy designed to keep the sheeple enslaved/to get them chipped'; 'Covid is deadly only for the very sick and very old, the government is generating paranoia to stay in power indefinitely'; 'Covid is an anti-chinese hoax designed to enrich American vaccine producers'. Those parties failed to gain any significant traction and stayed well below the threshold. And as to anti-vax, given that the party spokesman is in charge of the development of the supposed Bulgarian Covid vaccine, ITN are not anti-vax, although they - naturally - oppose making vaccination mandatory.

Of course, their anti-covid position may have possibly been hurt a bit by the fact that the aforementioned spokesman was out for most of the campaign due to fighting for his life in hospital with Covid. Possibly.

Is any oligarch or a strong economic group behind him? His campaign had to cost something....

Complicated issue. I'd refer to my posts on the first page - for one, there are very few oligarchs that give to a single party only, even if they are strongly associated with GERB or BSP or DPS. In general, GERB are tolerant of financial support for other parties, as long as they get their own share. While there is oligarchic support for ITN, their campaign was financed almost exclusively through the candidates themselves, a lot of whom are either mid-tier businessmen, lawyers and doctors or these persons' children. Like I said earlier, the candidates were prohibited from making media appearances outside the party's own (pay) TV channel, so that made the campaign cheaper. ITN even refused the media package that by law is afforded to all participating parties.

I have read also in the foreign press that he know politics very weel, but it seems to me not very likely if he was so long the face of the political talkshow...

What you read is true. It would probably be a waste of my time to type up Trifonov's 30+ year history in the public eye, given how much interest there is in Bulgarian politics. I'll just repost the second point of the second post in this thread:

Everybody who is somebody has somebody who has an 'in' with anybody who is somebody

 

[PetrSokol]

Great, I made mystake in the last question. I read that he doesnt know politics very well...I was surprised with this because I know about Ku-ku, Kanaleto, referendums and so on...thanks for answer this...

You mentioned his own TV Chanel. Does it mean he is the owner of it?

[RGM2609]

A bit of an unrelated question, but why is your vaccination campaign so far behind the rest of the EU? Are the anti vaxxers so influent, is the government royally messing it up or a combination of the two?

[Beagle]

Great, I made mystake in the last question. I read that he doesnt know politics very well...I was surprised with this because I know about Ku-ku, Kanaleto, referendums and so on...thanks for answer this...

You mentioned his own TV Chanel. Does it mean he is the owner of it?

Ah, I see. No, he's thoroughly familiar with everybody who factors in Bulgarian politics. He may be prone to walking in traps set by the more politically astute players, but this remains to be seen. And yeah, he owns the 7/8 cable TV station, which can be watched for the princely sum of 0.78 BGN per month (approximately €0.4). Every Bulgarian political party has their own TV station (GERB, arguably, has 4 or 5, including at least 2 out of the 3 terrestrial broadcasters), Trifonov is the only one with the chutzpah to make it paid.

A bit of an unrelated question, but why is your vaccination campaign so far behind the rest of the EU? Are the anti vaxxers so influent, is the government royally messing it up or a combination of the two?

The anti-vaxxers are not (yet) a factor. The roll-out campaign has been colossally inept and haphazard, but the vaccination lag is mostly due to the actual lack of vaccines. Back when the EU were making their collective purchase, Borisov's government decided to bet on Sanofi and AstraZeneca, whose vaccines appeared to be close to fruition, and to forgo most of the available quota for the more expensive RNA vaccines (which was picked up mostly by Germany). When Sanofi failed to produce and AstraZeneca got delayed, Bulgaria was left high and dry without vaccines, which led to urgent Pfizer/Moderna purchases, but the regular deliveries began only last month. And since the Pfizer vaccines were reserved for elections personnel - a lot of whom failed to show up at their assigned vaccination times - this also led to a substantially lower vaccination rate.

We're still a few weeks from the point where everybody who wants to get a mRNA vaccine can get one. Perhaps interestingly, polls showed a significant positive turnaround in the willingness to get a vaccine once the government opened the floodgates and allowed everybody to get AstraZeneca in specified hospitals without waiting their turn. It seems that a lot of people saw the queues lining in front of hospitals and got FOMO.

[RGM2609]

Ah, just GERB shocking us all yet again with its great skills in governing and administrating a country. I was actually pretty worried that there are so few people willing to get the vaccines, thankfully that is not the case.

[GMantis]

I'm pasting the discussion from the election maps thread for the record:

Although nobody expects the new parliament to serve a full term, as long as ITN propose any government at all - even if Trifonov emerges from covid isolation with an announcement that Hoxhaism is now the official state policy and that Bulgaria will form a bulwark against revisionism - it will get at least 121 votes in parliament. In part because of self-preservation, in part because of willingness to give enough rope for ITN to hang themselves, but all 5 non-ITN parties have pronounced  their willingness to support in some way the formation of a government by ITN. And it seems that ITN are willing to try.
 

Other than BSP backtracking in their support, there isn't much new to report. If ITN proposes a government, as of today it appears that they can rely on the support of DB and IS!MV! (92 seats between them). From their limited public statements, ITN's preferred course of action would be for BSP and/or DPS to fail to register for the sitting and for the government to be elected by 92 to 75 with however many abstaining*. If - as seems likely - their government would have to rely on the support of one of the toxic status quo parties, ITN wouldn't want to sully their reputation and would not put a government to the vote.

* but if both BSP and DPS register for the sitting, the vote would fail**, as the government needs the support of over half the MPs present
** technically GERB have promised that if the proposed government is up to 10 votes short, they would make up the deficit in the name of stability, but this is posturing and nobody is taking it seriously

If ITN does not propose a government or if it fails the vote, the ball passes in the president's court, who has to give the third and final mandate to one of the other parties. For a number of reasons Radev will almost certainly pick DB, but despite the legal loophole that DB wants to exploit (if the elected government resigns immediately after their election, parliament is not dissolved), there is practically zero chance to avoid early elections as soon as July.

Today Slavi Trifonov emerged* from covid isolation and let us know that:
- the ITN nominee for PM will be a female chess grandmaster
- the nominee, however, will hand the mandate back to the president, without proposing a government
- it is unacceptable for ITN to rely on the support on any of the 3 status-quo parties

* posted on facebook; due to the aforementioned media collapse, these days both Borisov and Trifonov are communicating only through facebook

While the procedure will be drawn out for a further week or two, it is almost certain that there will need to be a make-up election in the summer. The early polling suggests that ITN did not have a significant 'fresh face' boost and that they're still second, a couple of points behind GERB, while there is a three way race for third between DPS, DB and BSP**. New elections would also bring back the nationalists in parliament (VMRO will almost certainly form a coalition with at least one of the 5 other parties in that spectrum). The survival of IS!MV! is iffy due to some friction within the coalition.
Of course, Radev's caretaker government will probably try to put their finger on the scale by making GERB's mismanagement of... basically everything public knowledge, so it is far too early to make predictions.

** due to the ITN proposed removal of restrictions of voting stations abroad, DPS will presumably receive a substantial boost from Turkish voting stations. Although while DPS were supposed to have made up with Erdogan, AKP-alligned media have been lambasting them since the election and it may be that the Turkish boost will be less sizable than expected. ITN and DB would also benefit from the increased vote abroad.

So to sumarize, GERB might well have a better chance to form a government after new elections, with their nationalist partners entering parliament and IS!MV! not doing so. When I heard it suggested before the election that  ITN was nothing more than a GERB controlled fake party designed to steal the anti-GERB votes from the real opposition, I dismissed the idea as a cynical conspiracy theory. But with the ridiculous attitude of ITN and GERB's strangely complacent attitude, I'm not prepared to dismiss as readily as that...

Hopefully Radev will be smart enough to give the third mandate to DB. Then ITN will be forced to support a DB-led government (or discredit themselves utterly) and they will almost certainly receive the support of BSP and IS!MV!, enough for a majority.

[GMantis]

Radev (in what might be the worst mistake of his presidency) has given the third mandate to form a government to BSP, which means that the question mark can be safely taken out of the thread title - BSP has no hope of forming a government.

[RGM2609]

How likely is it for the next Parliament to fail at forming a government too and therefore, a third election in an year?

[Beagle]

Radev (in what might be the worst mistake of his presidency) has given the third mandate to form a government to BSP, which means that the question mark can be safely taken out of the thread title - BSP has no hope of forming a government.

I think DB made it (informally) clear to Radev that they wouldn't propose a government either - Wednesday's stunt where GERB, BSP and DPS in concert blocked the parliament sitting really proved that a government that has to rely on the status quo to break the status quo is doomed from the start. And the legal loophole I had mentioned earlier is now closed, as parliament severely hamstrung GERB's outgoing government (of course, too late to block a lot of appointments and public procurements), but also any other government acting after its resignation.

The question mark is now whether BSP returns the mandate immediately (in which case the election will be on July 11) or wait until after St. George's day (July 18).

How likely is it for the next Parliament to fail at forming a government too and therefore, a third election in an year?

The vote buyers have families to feed and there is the presidential election coming up too! Think of the children! Yeah, it's not completely inconceivable, especially since if certain non-palatable parties manage to get in parliament somehow, but I would be shocked if there's a third parliamentary election in 2021. If it comes to it, there will be an 'expert' government until the census (which was canceled in 2020) is completed and single-member districts can be formed.

[RGM2609]

If it is July 11th then the Balkans will have a busy day: Moldova is having early elections too...
Probably the best thing about the new elections is that the BSP will likely collapse even further: about time for that Russophile party of ex-communists to go away

[GMantis]

Radev (in what might be the worst mistake of his presidency) has given the third mandate to form a government to BSP, which means that the question mark can be safely taken out of the thread title - BSP has no hope of forming a government.

I think DB made it (informally) clear to Radev that they wouldn't propose a government either - Wednesday's stunt where GERB, BSP and DPS in concert blocked the parliament sitting really proved that a government that has to rely on the status quo to break the status quo is doomed from the start. And the legal loophole I had mentioned earlier is now closed, as parliament severely hamstrung GERB's outgoing government (of course, too late to block a lot of appointments and public procurements), but also any other government acting after its resignation.

I think that this is a somewhat over-dramatic conclusion. As has been pointed out, all three had their own objectives to pursue, but BSP is not opposed to the election reforms which seem to be the main objective of the new opposition in the government. Certainly cynical, but it doesn't mean that the three parties are allies. More importantly, I don't see much hope of ITN being able to form a government without the support of BSP. Latest polling data certainly points this way. And this is before taking into account the underestimation of GERB and DPS, as well as the nationalist allies of GERB forming a coalition to enter parliament. In fact, it's far from unlikely that GERB is able to form a new government after the next election.

The question mark is now whether BSP returns the mandate immediately (in which case the election will be on July 11) or wait until after St. George's day (July 18).

No, if they return it immediately (ie on May 5) the election will have to be held on July 4 - the last Sunday before the two month deadline after parliament is dissolved.

If it is July 11th then the Balkans will have a busy day: Moldova is having early elections too...
Probably the best thing about the new elections is that the BSP will likely collapse even further: about time for that Russophile party of ex-communists to go away

The collapse of the BSP in this election had much to do with the Covid pandemic and it's likely that by the summer the current wave will have abated.

As for the collapse of BSP being a good thing - even discounting my obvious bias, I don't see how the continuance  of GERB rule, the likely effect of a BSP collapse, could be any better than BSP's Russophilia which is substantially exaggerated (especially when they're actually in government). Furthermore, a BSP collapse doesn't mean that those with left-wing views and pro-Russian positions will go anywhere and they're a very significant proportion of the population (most surveys that BSP's economic policy is closest to the average view of the voters and the majority of the people have favorable views of Russia) and if there is no mainstream party to represent them, they're going to shift to a fringe party. Like last time, when this was the ultra-nationalist Ataka, which would have likely failed to enter parliament in 2005 or 2014 if it wasn't for the perceived abandonment by BSP of its left-wing economic policies and Russophilia respectively.

[RGM2609]

I have no sympathy for socialism, GMantis, however, if you say that the positions of the BSP are the closest to the majority of the population, then is it not strange that they only got 15%, and have allowed the GERB to dominate since 2009? If they are truly the party closest to the population, then either their brand is bad, they are shockingly incompetent, or both. I believe it would be in the best interest of everyone, including left-wingers, if this party which managed to fail on so many occasions, to go away and be replaced by a modern social democratic party. Not that I think this will happen anytime soon, this is merely hypothetical.

[GMantis]

I have no sympathy for socialism, GMantis, however, if you say that the positions of the BSP are the closest to the majority of the population, then is it not strange that they only got 15%, and have allowed the GERB to dominate since 2009? If they are truly the party closest to the population, then either their brand is bad, they are shockingly incompetent, or both. I believe it would be in the best interest of everyone, including left-wingers, if this party which managed to fail on so many occasions, to go away and be replaced by a modern social democratic party. Not that I think this will happen anytime soon, this is merely hypothetical.

As was pointed out earlier, the majority of the people don't follow politics at all and even among those who do, not many actually take party positions into account. For many, BSP's actions in previous government makes it impossible for them to vote for BSP again. A large number of voters, regardless of their positions on the issues, will never vote for them because they used to be Communists/caused Videnov's winter/invited DPS into power/appointed Peevski and so on. And because voters are so badly informed, perception is more important than reality. I doubt that many of the people voting for ITN know that this party supports neo-liberal policies that go even further of those that have been in place since 1997, and yet they're considered a populist party. And in connection with this, youare right that the BSP brand is bad. One part is that they're not actually very socialists (they passed a flat tax while they were in power between 2005 and 2009). The other is that BSP  seems to show little interest in promoting any of the classical left-wing issues that are important to voters.

[Beagle]

The election will be held on July 11. BSP will hand back the mandate immediately on May 5, but Bulgarian legal doctrine is that the count will start on the first working day after parliament is dissolved on the 7th. The first Sunday two months away from the 10th is July 11th.

This is the fact in this post, the rest is my commentary:

BSP is not opposed to the election reforms which seem to be the main objective of the new opposition in the government

[citation needed]. This parliament is going to end up with a grand total of 20 or so really contested votes, they're not that difficult to parse.
BSP opposed:
- removal of restrictions on number of voting stations in non-EU countries*
* it is unclear if the removal will actually take effect, since parliament also removed the texts allowing for opening of voting stations outside of embassies and consulates abroad and when ITN tried to return to the question to remove the contradiction, BSP blocked it on procedural grounds
- the formation of an 'overseas' electoral district
- single member electoral districts
- mail voting/remote electronic voting
- updating the voting rolls/introducing active voter registration

BSP supported the replacement of the electoral commission, video recording of the vote count and kinda/sorta making voting by machine in precincts with over 300 voters mandatory.

Of course, their opposition on some issues made a lot of sense for logical, legal and/or political reasons (why would BSP facilitate voting abroad when they came 6th with 6.5% of the vote there). However, allow me to have my reservations about how much of an opposition party BSP were and are - again borne out by the GERB-BSP-DPS coalition on the only vote this parliament will take that remotely touches on reform in the captured prosecutorship.

As to BSP's chances in the upcoming elections (and in the future), yeah, BSP is likely to lose more ground in July. It must be said, though, that BSP's slide is caused not only by external factors, but also by Ninova's intransigence in asserting her leadership. Over her 5 year tenure as BSP leader, she has fallen out with/ostracized/removed:
- president Rumen Radev
- all her living predecessors as BSP leader
- 2 out of the 5 BSP mayors of major cities elected in 2019
- 3/5 BSP MEPs elected in 2019
- BSP's veteran MPs who had served in 3+ parliaments
- many, if not most, of BSP's countryside 'red barons'

The last part is perhaps most crucial for the party's electoral prospects, as these are their chief source of controlled votes and local 'influencers'. At some point they probably needed to be brought to heel, as they were getting too independent and/or close to GERB. Still, Ninova's exercise in 'How to lose friends and alienate people' caused a loss of votes that is comparable to Covid's effects.

That having been said, BSP's long term prospects appear bleak to me even once Ninova is gone for purely demographic reasons, unless they get a charismatic leader and/or extraordinarily lucky. If we trust the exit polls, BSP got:
33% (1st place) among voters aged 60+
13% among the 31-60 crowd
6% (joint 5th/6th place with the exiled oligarch's BNO party) among voters 30 and under

I'm reminded of a statement by a BSP deputy leader that raised some eyebrows a few years back. "Socialism is a sexually transmitted disease," he intoned when introducing his daughter from the roster at some party event. It may have been a joke gone wrong, but it's not not true in Bulgaria. Pretty much the only young people who vote Socialist are 'legacy' voters and even among them the party suffers a terrible attrition rate.

[Beagle]

I'm reminded of a statement by a BSP deputy leader that raised some eyebrows a few years back. "Socialism is a sexually transmitted disease," he intoned when introducing his daughter from the roster at some party event. It may have been a joke gone wrong, but it's not not true in Bulgaria. Pretty much the only young people who vote Socialist are 'legacy' voters and even among them the party suffers a terrible attrition rate.

... and this guy has just been made spokesman of the newly installed caretaker government. He's been off the radar for a while so his appointment was rather surprising. President Radev's choice of ministers was less surprising, although there was an expectation in addition to the caretaker PM - a career military man like Radev himself, who had been his advisor and defense minister in his previous caretaker government in 2017 - there'd be a heavy touch of olive green/camo to the cabinet. Instead, it's crimson.

Is there really no way to embed youtube links? I've been trying to insert Tom Lehrer's Fight Fiercely Harvard, but no dice

It comes not only from a certain Ivy League university, though, it's also because among the few ministers who have been party men, there are 2 or 3 representatives of the leftist opposition to Ninova within the BSP*. At a party congress a few years ago, the new Justice minister (and my one-time legal theory professor) said, "I don't want to be more Catholic than the Pope... but based on our proposed party platform, the Pope himself is much more Socialist than us". But the caretaker government also contains a number of 'Old Right' or at least DB-friendly ministers, as well as one of the founders of IS!MV!. Most portfolios,  however, went to anonymous mid- to high-tier career public servants. In any event, this government is fairly clearly anti-GERB, but they will not get the opportunity to do much due to the limited nature and lifespan of the caretaker government.

* in her pique, Ninova essentially banned high-ranking BSP officials from taking part in the caretaker government, but the ones that Radev appointed are outside the leadership

Anyway, I wanted to retract my earlier assertion that ITN's anti-covid stance is that moderate. I've been to a family function where it turned out there were quite a few ITN voters and, well, there's no need to list all the rather startling statements I've heard, but it was pretty heavy stuff.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Huh, so immediate new elections? I imagine with bleak prospects.

Is there really no way to embed youtube links? I've been trying to insert Tom Lehrer's Fight Fiercely Harvard, but no dice

You can do that by adding [youtube] before the URL link and the same but with a slash after the link. Something tells me you don't use the advanced editor? There's a specific button for that there.

At a party congress a few years ago, the new Justice minister (and my one-time legal theory professor) said, "I don't want to be more Catholic than the Pope... but based on our proposed party platform, the Pope himself is much more Socialist than us".

Hahahahaha lmao. I am a Catholic leftist and have at times semi-seriously described myself as a "Pope Francis Socialist" and I love this quip. And from the little I know I think your Justice minister is not wrong.

But the caretaker government also contains a number of 'Old Right' or at least DB-friendly ministers, as well as one of the founders of IS!MV!. Most portfolios,  however, went to anonymous mid- to high-tier career public servants. In any event, this government is fairly clearly anti-GERB, but they will not get the opportunity to do much due to the limited nature and lifespan of the caretaker government.

Is this mix of party figures of different stripes and of anonymous non-partisan public servants the norm for caretaker governments in Bulgaria?
[Coincidentally, it is roughly the same structure as Italy's current government, although our circumstances are of course significantly different]

[Beagle]

Huh, so immediate new elections? I imagine with bleak prospects.

All parties - for various reasons - feel like they'll do better in the July election. GMantis posted a plausible scenario below, but it's far too early to make any prediction whose hopes are going to be dashed.

So to sumarize, GERB might well have a better chance to form a government after new elections, with their nationalist partners entering parliament and IS!MV! not doing so. When I heard it suggested before the election that  ITN was nothing more than a GERB controlled fake party designed to steal the anti-GERB votes from the real opposition, I dismissed the idea as a cynical conspiracy theory. But with the ridiculous attitude of ITN and GERB's strangely complacent attitude, I'm not prepared to dismiss as readily as that...

You can do that by adding [youtube] before the URL link and the same but with a slash after the link. Something tells me you don't use the advanced editor? There's a specific button for that there.

Many thanks. Let's see if this works - I tried the youtube tag, but the video never showed up in the preview. And I'm afraid I don't know where to find the advanced editor.

Edit: welp, no, it does display the video, but also messes the tags up and apparently hides part of the text around it. Still, thanks for trying to help.


Anyway, 3/19 of the government are Harvard graduates. Maybe not that many, but it's more than the 2/19 female ministers - which, as some GERB-friendly media have pointed out, is the worst gender imbalance in 25 years. I should have bolded party men earlier.

Hahahahaha lmao. I am a Catholic leftist and have at times semi-seriously described myself as a "Pope Francis Socialist" and I love this quip. And from the little I know I think your Justice minister is not wrong.

Very much not wrong.

Is this mix of party figures of different stripes and of anonymous non-partisan public servants the norm for caretaker governments in Bulgaria?
[Coincidentally, it is roughly the same structure as Italy's current government, although our circumstances are of course significantly different]

Pretty much, yeah - 'democrats of all colors', as Radev introduced this lot, and either non-partisan(ish) civil servants, university faculty or businessmen. The one exception was in 1997, but the country was in a humanitarian crisis and just back from the brink of civil war after the disastrous Videnov/BSP government, so the then President Stoyanov felt justified in appointing a rather partisan caretaker government under the SDS Sofia mayor.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Many thanks. Let's see if this works - I tried the youtube tag, but the video never showed up in the preview. And I'm afraid I don't know where to find the advanced editor.

Edit: welp, no, it does display the video, but also messes the tags up and apparently hides part of the text around it. Still, thanks for trying to help.

You can select the advanced post editor in your profile settings under "Atlas - Forum Options".

I don't know what was happening to your post exactly, but the YouTube embed works perfectly fine for me. Here is what you were trying to do:

[Beagle]

Other than the predictable bickering over the outrages uncovered by the caretaker government and some questionable decisions by the above-mentioned government, there are a few developments worth mentioning with 50 days to go until the election:

• BSP have reunited with its various 'reformist leftist' splinters - ABV (see 2014 and 2017 Parliament, 2016 President threads), ,[sic] movement 21 (ibid) and one other minnow. ,movement 21 had been an integral part of the IS!MV! coalition and its defection is a symbolic blow, although electorally it's worth 0.5% at most. Still, it's not like IS!MV! have a lot of breathing space between themselves and the 4% threshold.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

reading back, I realize that I never explained what amused me so much about the since removed campaign spot of the ,m21 leader in a rowboat with a sheep, a wolf and a bale of hay from her 2016 presidential campaign.

Is joke from Latvia. I tell now.

Latvian try to cross river. Has dog, potatoes, and dead son's body. Can only take one across river at one time. If he leave dog with potatoes or corpse, dog eat them. Is very sad. Also is not good boat.
 

• VMRO and NFSB+Volya have - as predicted - joined in a coalition creatively named 'The Bulgarian Patriots'. I thought about posting the various jabs and insults the 3 party leaders have traded between themselves over the years, but that would be gratuitous and would take several hours. Plus the party leaders, as a condition for the coalition's formation, will not be on candidates lists.
• Most pollsters are keeping their powder dry until the official start of the campaign and the ones that have published their polls are not particularly reputable, but the general picture is that GERB is still in first, despite losing some support, because ITN's refusal to even attempt to form a government hurt them. It's still within MoE, though. All other parties seem to be marginally up at the expense of GERB and the non-parliamentary parties, but I'm very doubtful this will hold for all.

 --------
On a separate note, 2 weeks before the parliamentary election, there is going to be a special election for mayor of the town of Blagoevgrad. Ordinarily an election in the 15th largest Bulgarian town, despite it giving birth to Dimitar Berbatov, would not merit any mention, but it can be viewed as an early sign of how the election will go and will certainly serve to build and push a few narratives. The problem is that Blagoevgrad's local politics are, uh, quirky even by Bulgarian standards, because all the various patronage networks that coalesce around GERB or the oligarchic party du jour for national elections run under separate party lists for local elections. The result is that there are 14 formations represented in the 41 member municipal council (an increase from 12 in 2011 and 13 in 2015), with the top party - GERB - winning all of 12% of the vote. And in a funny, but not funny haha, way, most of the GERB councilors currently are actually in opposition to the national party (since they are loyalists to the arch-corrupt former mayor, who got ousted in 2019 and soon departed for the party of the former GERB second in command), while Boyko Borisov's party can count on the steadfast support of at least 4 groups that ran under the guise of various opposition parties.

Anyway, the above has little to do with the actual mayoral election, where three major candidates are running:
- the BSP incumbent, who was removed from his position once his GERB opponent discovered that he had failed to divest from his companies within the legally mandated 30-day term (although it took 15 months for the removal to take effect because the court case went all the way to the Constitutional court)
- the GERB candidate, who came 3rd in the 2019 election when he ran under the banner of a Volya - astroturf 'Green' party coalition
- ITN are running an ex-municipal councilor who last ran for the de rigueur Eastern European party-of-the-aging-rockstar-what-will-shake-up-the-rotten-system-(pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain). It's unlikely that he'll make the run-off, but he should siphon enough support to ensure that a run-off takes place. Still, the BSP candidate is favored and Ninova will gladly enter the final push of the campaign with the wind in her sails if/when he prevails.

[Beagle]

As stated earlier, I don't intend to cover the developments that are not directly pertaining to the elections - there's plenty other

sources if you're interested - but please spare a thought for exiled oligarch Vasil Bozhkov:

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

Vasil Bozhkov: Dear Uncle Sam, over the past decade, I have engaged in a massive bribery campaign, funneling tens of millions into the pockets of GERB/DPS figures in order to maintain a tax loophole and an illegal monopoly over online betting, gambling and instant lotteries. Here are the receipts. Please sanction the guilty parties under the Magnitsky act.

US: Today we place sanctions under the Magnitsky act over Vasil Bozhkov and his associates for engaging in a massive bribery campaign, funneling tens of millions into the pockets of GERB/DPS figures in order to maintain a tax loophole and an illegal monopoly over online betting, gambling and instant lotteries.

Vasil Bozhkov:

Some developments that are pertaining to the elections are:

GERB - not much to report, other than the replacement of dozens of candidates (with one exception, entirely in the unelectable positions on the party lists) with members of the youth wing of the party. I was going to say that we are about to have our first MP born in 2000, but I just checked and he was actually born in late 1999 - just as well, since constitutionally the MPs have to be at least 21 years old.

ITN - 1) Trifonov has removed himself from the party lists and will not become an MP - but has promised to bear complete responsibility for the MPs... and to bear it from another institution if needed at a later date. There are conflicting interpretations whether he means his intention to become Prime Minister after the election, if he's throwing his hat into the Presidential ring or something else entirely; so far ITN had all but officially endorsed President Radev's reelection. 2) ITN have dropped their policy to appear only on the party's own television channel (as well as dropped the subscription fee for that channel), they are running ads on 'mainstream' media and have promised that if they are in a position to do so, they would put up a proposed government to the vote, even without a secure 'non-status-quo' majority - presumably due to the backlash from causing this re-do election.

BSP Ah, well:

• BSP have reunited with its various 'reformist leftist' splinters - ABV (see 2014 and 2017 Parliament, 2016 President threads), ,[sic] movement 21 (ibid) and one other minnow. ,movement 21 had been an integral part of the IS!MV! coalition and its defection is a symbolic blow, although electorally it's worth 0.5% at most. Still, it's not like IS!MV! have a lot of breathing space between themselves and the 4% threshold.

Sorry, I was spreading fake news where it comes to ,m21. In my defence, ,m21's leader did sign the agreement with Ninova in front of the press and TV cameras and later came up with the lame excuse that cooperation does not mean coalition. In any event ,m21 is back with IS!MV!, but BSP did bring another leftist organization into the fold - Ataka's far left wing that split from the party all the way back in 2006, who have been running in every election since then, never getting less than 10k or more that 20k votes, but ironically, this is more than Ataka managed in the last election - or ABV for that matter.

DPS - the party leadership went to kowtow to Erdogan last week, causing outrage when Karadayi was reported to have referred to Turkey as the 'motherland' of Bulgaria's Turks. The Turkish press later published an explanation that a more accurate translation of Karadyi's Turkish would be 'ancestral land', I am not qualified to ascertain the truthfulness of either translation. Due to the removal of the limit on the number of voting stations in non-EU countries, there is an expectation that there will be massive turnout operation in Turkey among Bulgarian Turks that have emigrated there over the past decades, which could net DPS tens of thousands of votes - if Erdogan's authorities are cooperative.

Bulgarian Patriots - to my surprise, the polling (scarce as it is, I counted 11 surveys done in February - the month preceding the official campaign for the April election - and just 4 in late May/early June) indicates that the 'Patriots' are struggling to reach the 4% threshold. VMRO and NFSB+Volya had a combined 6% in April.

[Beagle]

On a separate note, 2 weeks before the parliamentary election, there is going to be a special election for mayor of the town of Blagoevgrad. Ordinarily an election in the 15th largest Bulgarian town, despite it giving birth to Dimitar Berbatov, would not merit any mention, but it can be viewed as an early sign of how the election will go and will certainly serve to build and push a few narratives. The problem is that Blagoevgrad's local politics are, uh, quirky even by Bulgarian standards, because all the various patronage networks that coalesce around GERB or the oligarchic party du jour for national elections run under separate party lists for local elections. The result is that there are 14 formations represented in the 41 member municipal council (an increase from 12 in 2011 and 13 in 2015), with the top party - GERB - winning all of 12% of the vote. And in a funny, but not funny haha, way, most of the GERB councilors currently are actually in opposition to the national party (since they are loyalists to the arch-corrupt former mayor, who got ousted in 2019 and soon departed for the party of the former GERB second in command), while Boyko Borisov's party can count on the steadfast support of at least 4 groups that ran under the guise of various opposition parties.

Anyway, the above has little to do with the actual mayoral election, where three major candidates are running:
- the BSP incumbent, who was removed from his position once his GERB opponent discovered that he had failed to divest from his companies within the legally mandated 30-day term (although it took 15 months for the removal to take effect because the court case went all the way to the Constitutional court)
- the GERB candidate, who came 3rd in the 2019 election when he ran under the banner of a Volya - astroturf 'Green' party coalition
- ITN are running an ex-municipal councilor who last ran for the de rigueur Eastern European party-of-the-aging-rockstar-what-will-shake-up-the-rotten-system-(pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain). It's unlikely that he'll make the run-off, but he should siphon enough support to ensure that a run-off takes place. Still, the BSP candidate is favored and Ninova will gladly enter the final push of the campaign with the wind in her sails if/when he prevails.

Blagoevgrad election results:

ITN: 35% endorsed by IS!MV! and SDS - runoff
BSP (i): 29% - runoff
GERB: 19% endorsed by the Bulgarian Patriots
(DB: 4%)

Turnout was an abysmal 28%. At least 10% of the 65 thousand voters on Blagoevgrad's electoral roll are actually Macedonians who don't reside in Bulgaria, but needed to put a Bulgarian address on their citizenship application; with Blagoevgrad close by the border and with many second and third cousins from both sides keeping touch, it is an obvious choice. Still, turnout for the regular local election was 58% 2 years ago and 51% for the parliamentary election 2 months ago, the drop-off is due to some combination of the scorching heat, fear of the mandatory voting by machine, weariness-in-advance (this was the first of three consecutive Sundays on which the citizens of Blagoevgrad will be called to the polls) or - mostly - dissatisfaction with the available choices.

As to the result, when I wrote the preview 6 weeks ago, I didn't know that the ITN candidate is close to the arch-corrupt former mayor, who left GERB after his defeat in 2019. In effect, the election became a reprise of the 2019 election, in which ITN played the role of GERB and the GERB candidate remained with the same coalition that supported him in the first round back then, as did the BSP incumbent. The 2019 first round results were GERB - 29%, BSP - 25%, Volya [GERB this time] - 14%, so the margins remain pretty much identical.

Second round projection: Likely ITN. In 2019 everybody united against the corrupt GERB mayor in the second round, but this time the ITN candidate has less baggage and carries the mantle of the fresh new party. In the 2014-2019 term, while being municipal councilor for the party-of-the-aging-rockstar etc., he also served as deputy mayor in a GERB administration in a municipality on the border with Greece (a combination that is by no means usual), so he must be more palatable to the GERB powers that be. The BSP incumbent's chance is in a) emphasizing the links between the ITN candidate and the ex-mayor and b) hoping that the voters who went for the GERB candidate this time will remember that in 2019 he endorsed the BSP in the second round and got elected chairman of the municipal council with BSP support, but this is rather unlikely.

So yeah, under the circumstances, assigning any predictive value to the results is pretty iffy. I regret bringing the whole thing up.

[PSOL]

Anyone have any information on this alliance that formed recently. Several of the parties tactical voted for or had aligned with the BSP, so why are they forming this alliance now? What is the full makeup and platform of this electoral alliance?