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

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 11:01:33 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Other Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  International Elections (Moderators: afleitch, Hash)
  🇧🇬 Bulgarian elections megathread (next up: European and National (?) Parliament 09 June 2024)
« previous next »
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 14
Author Topic: 🇧🇬 Bulgarian elections megathread (next up: European and National (?) Parliament 09 June 2024)  (Read 27131 times)
GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #50 on: April 04, 2021, 04:29:38 PM »

Also if that exit poll is true, great news imo, with far right parties not making the threshold. Bulgaria would join the small "no far right" club of EU countries.

Sadly it seems to still have tons of oligarch led corrupt parties, but this election seems to be an improvement? I generally distrust anti corruption parties but it seems the corrupt people are getting punished, even if it is in many cases by voting a different set of oligarchs
VMRO is very much a far-right party, though they tend to focus more on the Macedonian issue where they have the widest popular support.

What does focusing on the Macedonian issue mean in practice? I know that there is a sense in Bulgaria that Macedonians are actually Bulgarians, but what does ВМРО state or propose specifically?
I don't think that many Bulgarians actually think that the current Macedonians are Bulgarians. There is however a consensus that they were until recently Bulgarians, who were coerced into identifying as Macedonians under Communist Yugoslavia, that history as seen in North Macedonia is a gross falsification of Bulgarian history and that their language is a dialect of Bulgarian. Furthermore, there have been claims from North Macedonia that there is a large ethnic Macedonian minority in the Bulgarian part of Macedonia, with Macedonia going as far  as to support pro-North Macedonian separatist parties in Bulgaria

Altogether, the Macedonian attempts to claim Bulgarian history as well as the whole of Macedonia as their own are seen at best as an insult and at worst as an aggression against Bulgaria. Therefore, a tough position against such Macedonian efforts is now very popular and Karakachanov (leader of VMRO) has been able to use his post as deputy prime minister to take a strong stand on these issues.
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #51 on: April 04, 2021, 06:03:16 PM »

Signing off for the night. This is the results page you want to follow if you want the national result faster than the official results page that was posted earlier.
I will try to get back to the questions and comments made itt tomorrow. A few late night developments:

- Borisov has - as predicted - proposed an 'expert' cabinet until December. This looks unlikely, or at least in the form he envisions
- ITN have drawn a line in the sand that they would not form a coalition under any circumstances with GERB, BSP or DPS (or VMRO if they make it in). One of the more plausible post-election scenarios was that GERB would sway them by proposing to implement all the electoral reforms that were passed in a referendum proposed by Trifonov back in 2016 (with the most major change being a switch to single member districts), but since GERB and ITN cannot reach a majority, this, I think, is off the table.
- IS! MV! leader Manolova is at the Sofia counting center trying to stop the steal, but this is really a part of her M.O. now - she also did it after the mayoral election, which I think she still refuses to concede to this day.
- a major surprise is the actual result for exiled oligarch Vasil Bozhkov's party (or rather the party he's taken over since his own 'Bulgarian Summer' was not registered in time). While at this time it appears that he'll stay below the threshold, he'll come much closer than anyone expected.
Logged
Flyersfan232
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,794


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #52 on: April 05, 2021, 10:42:48 AM »

Signing off for the night. This is the results page you want to follow if you want the national result faster than the official results page that was posted earlier.
I will try to get back to the questions and comments made itt tomorrow. A few late night developments:

- Borisov has - as predicted - proposed an 'expert' cabinet until December. This looks unlikely, or at least in the form he envisions
- ITN have drawn a line in the sand that they would not form a coalition under any circumstances with GERB, BSP or DPS (or VMRO if they make it in). One of the more plausible post-election scenarios was that GERB would sway them by proposing to implement all the electoral reforms that were passed in a referendum proposed by Trifonov back in 2016 (with the most major change being a switch to single member districts), but since GERB and ITN cannot reach a majority, this, I think, is off the table.
- IS! MV! leader Manolova is at the Sofia counting center trying to stop the steal, but this is really a part of her M.O. now - she also did it after the mayoral election, which I think she still refuses to concede to this day.
- a major surprise is the actual result for exiled oligarch Vasil Bozhkov's party (or rather the party he's taken over since his own 'Bulgarian Summer' was not registered in time). While at this time it appears that he'll stay below the threshold, he'll come much closer than anyone expected.
What is bno?
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #53 on: April 05, 2021, 12:55:57 PM »


- a major surprise is the actual result for exiled oligarch Vasil Bozhkov's party (or rather the party he's taken over since his own 'Bulgarian Summer' was not registered in time). While at this time it appears that he'll stay below the threshold, he'll come much closer than anyone expected.
What is bno?

See above
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #54 on: April 05, 2021, 01:16:33 PM »

Right, the DB parallel count didn't end up a success - the official results are almost all in (before the mandatory retabulation, which seldom moves much, but does catch most of the errors that remained in after the first input - I've seen a precinct where it was fairly obvious that the DPS votes were placed in the wrong box). Here is the preliminary seat count, which may move by a seat or two in the final results:

(compared to 2017 result) ((compared to 2014 result))

GERB: 75 (-20) ((-9))
ITN: 51
BSP: 43 (-37) ((+4))
DPS: 28 (+2) ((-10))
DB: 27           ((+6*))
IS!MV!: 14     ((+3**))
* compared to the Reformist Bloc
** compared to ABV - if you took ABV's declared 'reformist leftist' position at face value, the two parties are comparable, although in practice ABV was definitely not anti-corruption

In all, it is remarkable how close the 2021 result mirrors the 2014 one, although the populist coalition (Bulgaria without Censorship) took only 15 seats then.
Logged
GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #55 on: April 05, 2021, 02:06:16 PM »

- IS! MV! leader Manolova is at the Sofia counting center trying to stop the steal, but this is really a part of her M.O. now - she also did it after the mayoral election, which I think she still refuses to concede to this day.
I wouldn't be so dismissive. Past practice (as you seemed to acknowledge in an earlier comment) makes such concern far from unwarranted. Of course, Maya Manolova has certainly a flair for dramatics, and if there's fraud happening, it's hardly going to be in the heavily monitored capital. But outside this attitude is certainly useful.
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #56 on: April 06, 2021, 04:42:00 PM »

- there may be a very ugly implication in the fact that the great result for DB is achieved in the first election where they have a massive observer machine in operation (by the way, they will report the results live and will be much faster than the authorities since they will only need to report the precinct protocols, while the official results will need to be fed into the central commission's computers
How common is electoral fraud believed to be? I've always heard dark whispers but never much concrete.
I wouldn't be so dismissive. Past practice (as you seemed to acknowledge in an earlier comment) makes such concern far from unwarranted. Of course, Maya Manolova has certainly a flair for dramatics, and if there's fraud happening, it's hardly going to be in the heavily monitored capital. But outside this attitude is certainly useful.

In the linked event, the supposed arrest of poll workers/vote buyers happened only in Manolova's press release (from what I've read, the police showed up, declared that nothing untoward was happening, gave the supposed vote buyers a warning and left). After the Kostinbrod affair, Manolova's declarations of electoral fraud are widely considered to be crying wolf and in any event yelling at random data-entriers is not actually intended to achieve anything except publicity.

Is there fraud in Bulgarian elections - yeah, without a doubt. How much is very much subject to discussion and also depends a lot on your definition of fraud. The anti-corruption fund actually just did a rather comprehensive study of all precincts in Bulgaria in the elections between 2013 and 2019. They considered 4 indicators of fraud:
- unusual turnout spikes or extreme differences in the winning party's margin compared to other precincts in the same municipality
- large fluctuations in turnout between elections of the same type
- random minor parties that fail to gain entry in parliament winning precincts (I learned for the first time today that a party that gained all of 5500 votes - 0.17% of the 2014 parliamentary vote - won 6 precincts in Kyustendil that year) 
- sharp rises or declines in major party support in elections

If you follow the link, you can check the maps for the precincts at risk in the 2014 and 2017 elections for yourself. The study acknowledges they fail to control for a favorite son effect and for the environment -  a large number of BSP-won precincts were flagged in 2017, but I'm sure in most, if not all, of them nothing particularly nefarious occurred - the BSP was simply recovering from a historic low in the 2014 election and regained many of its traditional voters.

But tl, dr: there were at least 170 thousand votes - about 5% of the total cast in precincts that were flagged for 3+ out of the 4 fraud indicators. This is a large amount, but not enough to put the entire process in doubt, IMO.

As to the gist of the question - how common is fraud in the actual vote counting - I choose to believe in Hanlon's razor. A photo that made the rounds in my DB circles yesterday showed an excerpt from a precinct's initial (paper) report that read:

DB
votes on paper ballots: 10
votes from the voting machine readout: 30
total votes: 0

Cue cries of fraud. However, the rows above read:

[hopeless BSP splinter party created by the 10 MPs who bolted when Ninova was reelected leader]
votes on paper ballots: 0
votes from the voting machine readout: 0
total votes: 20

Obviously this was a case of transposition of rows. This is corrected at the initial voting reporting, at the first data entry point, at the second data entry point or at the latest - at the mandatory vote retabulation. The actual vote counting at the precinct is the weakest point in the entire process - there are poll workers from every parliamentary party in each precinct, but especially where there are no poll observers, it is common that some of the less, uh, partisan poll workers will sign the blank papers before the voting is completed and head home, leaving the others to count the votes as they will. This, however, tends to balance itself out between the parties and these precincts tend to be small.

There are, of course, rumblings that there is some large scale fraud at hand, 'the voting machine's code was done by Venezuelans', that tens or even hundreds of thousand of votes are added or erased before the final reports. I think that this is disproved by the peculiar Bulgarian tradition of effectively live-reporting exit polls despite it being banned - earlier this required some creative thinking on the media's part, who were forced to hide parties behind some book, song or movie title, but after a court ruling that social media is not subject to the same rules as media websites (or in the 90s - as radio), they just post the reports on their facebook or twitter profile. There have always been at least 4 competing agencies providing their reports at least 5 times during the voting day. On the national level there has never been a discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result that can not be explained by the margin of error.
Logged
Ex-Assemblyman Steelers
Steelers
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 371
Serbia and Montenegro


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #57 on: April 06, 2021, 05:26:06 PM »

This election was very educative for me. I didn't know there is a Turkish minority in northwestern Bulgaria. I supposed they living only in the southeast.
Logged
GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #58 on: April 07, 2021, 05:35:13 AM »
« Edited: April 07, 2021, 05:38:16 AM by GMantis »

Of course most of the manipulation of the vote is not in the actual vote counting. In fact, much of it is not even direct fraud of the kind that could be easily detected by the indicators used in the study you linked to (a most obvious example is the control of the media, but there is also GERB's control of the bloated bureaucracy as a source of votes). All in all, it's not surprising that GERB does not want to have a new election under an interim government appointed by the President.

I can't quite agree with this part, however:
The actual vote counting at the precinct is the weakest point in the entire process - there are poll workers from every parliamentary party in each precinct, but especially where there are no poll observers, it is common that some of the less, uh, partisan poll workers will sign the blank papers before the voting is completed and head home, leaving the others to count the votes as they will. This, however, tends to balance itself out between the parties and these precincts tend to be small.
In fact it does not balance out, because they are two parties that have a distinct advantage here. One is of course the ruling GERB, which has enough resources at its disposal to take over many precincts, especially in areas they have control over local authorities as well. The other is DPS, due to how overwhelming their support tends to be in the stronghold (if you look at election maps, the vast majority of municipalities with over 60% support are won by DPS), which makes it difficult for anyone to interfere if there are irregularities. The old story about the DPS representative at the precinct asking the other parties' representatives: "Guys, how many votes should we write in for your parties, so that your superiors are not angry?" might be a joke, but there's more than a grain of truth in there. Though of course this plays more of a role in local elections, but it's one of the reasons GERB and DPS tend to exceed their predicted results.

This election was very educative for me. I didn't know there is a Turkish minority in northwestern Bulgaria. I supposed they living only in the southeast.
There isn't a Turkish minority in the northwest, it's in the northeast.
Logged
Ex-Assemblyman Steelers
Steelers
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 371
Serbia and Montenegro


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #59 on: April 07, 2021, 04:19:36 PM »

Yes, my bad. I have a problem with the cardinal directions
Logged
jaymichaud
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,356
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: 3.10, S: -7.83

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #60 on: April 07, 2021, 04:40:23 PM »

Is every political party in Bulgaria 'populist' as wikipedia describes?
Logged
Estrella
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,962
Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #61 on: April 08, 2021, 05:44:05 AM »

Is every political party in Bulgaria 'populist' as wikipedia describes?

Wikipedia infoboxes are varying degrees of useless in most of Eastern Europe, but yes, that's a correct description. Of course, if everyone is populist, no one is, and some populists are populister than others, so keep that in mind.
Logged
Battista Minola 1616
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,280
Vatican City State


Political Matrix
E: -5.55, S: -1.57

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #62 on: April 08, 2021, 06:08:45 AM »

Is every political party in Bulgaria 'populist' as wikipedia describes?

Wikipedia infoboxes are varying degrees of useless in most of Eastern Europe, but yes, that's a correct description. Of course, if everyone is populist, no one is, and some populists are populister than others, so keep that in mind.

Well, the word populist itself may be argued to be varying degrees of useless.
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #63 on: April 08, 2021, 06:54:58 AM »
« Edited: April 08, 2021, 08:01:22 AM by Beagle »

Is every political party in Bulgaria 'populist' as wikipedia describes?

Wikipedia infoboxes are varying degrees of useless in most of Eastern Europe, but yes, that's a correct description. Of course, if everyone is populist, no one is, and some populists are populister than others, so keep that in mind.

Nah. DPS may be called many things (e.g. kleptocratic, oligarchic, parasitic...), but populist - in any meaningful sense of the word - isn't one of them. I'm well aware that the DPS's campaigning style is vastly different between places and, come election time, Roma ghettos neighborhoods see a lot of 'you vs the [Bulgarian] elites' type of rhetoric from the DPS emissaries (as well as free food packages branded with the party's ballot number), but the real division lines they draw are ethnic/national/religious, not economic/political.

The derogatory nickname for DB supporters is the 'smartbeautiful', because of a reported utterance by a policeman guarding the summer protests of 2013 - which were against the appointment of DPS oligarch Delyan Peevski as security agency chief and thus populated by a lot of DB types: 'This crowd looks so much smarter and more beautiful than the winter protesters'. The winter protests of 2013 were caused by a spike in electricity and heating prices and thus drew mostly poorer, older, 'working class' participants. This apocryphal saying became a source of pride and was repeated thousands of times on social media, to the point where the 'Old Right''s detractors ran with it and used it against the arrogant elitist out-of-touch 'Old Right' base. After all, according to exit polls, almost 3 out of every 4 DB voters have a bachelor's degree or higher, when the percentage of the population that either has or is currently in higher education is less than 1/3.

And as for the BSP... well... I guess one way to describe them would be 'populist, but they really really suck at it'.

Edit: forgot to add the religious division line. Religion is - thankfully - not a significant political wedge issue here, but it is a fact that the DPS gets about 70-75% of the Muslim vote in Bulgaria with 20-25% going to GERB
Logged
kireev
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 294


WWW Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #64 on: April 08, 2021, 11:15:55 AM »


Logged
GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #65 on: April 08, 2021, 02:03:45 PM »
« Edited: April 08, 2021, 02:08:37 PM by GMantis »

Interesting maps, especially the second one. Though I can't quite agree with their classification. It's mostly right, but there are some obvious errors. For example, Vrabnitsa and Ovcha Kupel are very much of the Socialist Housing type - as can be seen on the linked maps, they may include some rural areas but they are dominated by late socialist high-rise areas. And some of those marked as "Early to Mid 20th century" (most notably Izgrev, Slatina, Krasna Polyana and Ilinden) were redeveloped so much during socialist rule that I would rather put them in a separate category, perhaps "Early Socialist".

But on the whole there certainly is some connection between how long ago a region of Sofia was developed and how strong their support for Democratic Bulgaria is today and of other similar parties, starting from SDS and its later splinter parties.  This is especially notable in the case of Sredets, which contains some of the oldest (and in addition, the most prestigious parts at the time) of Sofia and it was the only district won by one of the successor parties of SDS in 2005, 2009 and 2014.
Logged
GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #66 on: April 09, 2021, 05:22:09 AM »
« Edited: April 09, 2021, 05:38:52 AM by GMantis »

Map of the election results by electoral districts and municipalities:





The continuing growth of the GERB "turnout machine" (especially in many former BSP strongholds) and the utter collapse of BSP, as well as the relatively homogeneous distribution have resulted in a geographically very strong map for GERB, despite their weakest result to date.

In the actual Sofia municipality DB won narrowly over GERB (23.5% vs 22.1%).
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #67 on: April 15, 2021, 06:19:23 AM »

Anyone up for a primer on Bulgarian constitutional law? Anyone? No? OK.

So I will not bore you with arcane minutiae of the procedures that will happen after the new parliament's opening today and all the various traps and tricks that my fellow lawyers have devised if GERB really want to grind things to a halt and ensure that Boyko Borisov - albeit in a caretaker capacity - becomes the longest-serving [nominal] head of government in Bulgarian history. As of tomorrow, he needs 52 days to overtake the figurehead that served as prime minister for most of the Zhivkov years.

Borisov's days are numbered for now anyway: GERB intend to propose a government headed by an ex-FM, ex-'Old Right' figure. This is, of course, posturing, as there is absolutely no chance it will win approval in parliament, but under normal circumstances it will take up to a week until the ball passes in ITN's court.

I had postponed posting any updates in this thread because of the complete radio silence by ITN. Slavi Trifonov is - conveniently enough - sick with covid, he took the oath on zoom today and then logged off without taking part in the procedural votes. His deputies too have been mute on any topic other than the most basic stuff. The question on everyone's mind is whether or not they will pick up the mandate when their turn comes, since if they don't, we're almost certainly heading for a July election. After today's first parliament meeting, the possibility of this appears diminished.

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.

GERB's latest ploy is to reintroduce the single member districts that Trifonov proposed back in 2016 (if interested, check the presidential election thread of that year which also has a lot of coverage on that year's electoral rules referendum pt. 2: electric boogaloo). Introducing single members districts would be the death knell for all minor parties and possibly even BSP, so it would have placed GERB, DPS and ITN in an informal coalition against the rest. However, an off the cuff remark by Trifonov's deputy seems to show that ITN will not try and pass single member districts - at least not in the first few months of parliament. ITN will apparently concentrate on introducing mail voting, removing the restrictions for voting abroad and some other procedural and relatively non-controversial steps.



 
Logged
Battista Minola 1616
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,280
Vatican City State


Political Matrix
E: -5.55, S: -1.57

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #68 on: April 15, 2021, 09:34:08 AM »

GERB's latest ploy is to reintroduce the single member districts that Trifonov proposed back in 2016 (if interested, check the presidential election thread of that year which also has a lot of coverage on that year's electoral rules referendum pt. 2: electric boogaloo). Introducing single members districts would be the death knell for all minor parties and possibly even BSP, so it would have placed GERB, DPS and ITN in an informal coalition against the rest. However, an off the cuff remark by Trifonov's deputy seems to show that ITN will not try and pass single member districts - at least not in the first few months of parliament. ITN will apparently concentrate on introducing mail voting, removing the restrictions for voting abroad and some other procedural and relatively non-controversial steps.

Looking at the election map posted by GMantis (great work!) it seems to me that introducing single-member districts would be... sort of a death knell for ITN too. So I think I should not be surprised by that off the cuff remark. Am I wrong?
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #69 on: April 15, 2021, 02:55:12 PM »

Looking at the election map posted by GMantis (great work!) it seems to me that introducing single-member districts would be... sort of a death knell for ITN too. So I think I should not be surprised by that off the cuff remark. Am I wrong?

This site - which presents the election results as if the election was held in single member districts - is a fantastic resource to answer this question. I am surprised the guy who maintains it has been this diligent, but he has updated it with the 2021 results (also with a projection of a 120* seat parliament, as per the electoral rules referendum's third question) and it also has maps with the 2014 and 2017 results.

* although I believe the ITN proposal is for only 111 seats to be elected from Bulgaria proper, with 9 seats elected by the diaspora

Of course, the problem is that it is in Bulgarian and if your knowledge of Cyrillic is non-existent, I imagine it will be quite difficult to navigate the maps. But I can answer any questions that you may have.

So, with this projection, the first round results would indeed be quite staggering:

GERB - (ГЕРБ-СДС in the map) would be ahead in 171 seats (and in 53 additional runoffs)
DPS (ДПС) would be ahead in 27 (+ 22 runoffs)
DB (ДБ) would lead in 18 (+7 runoffs)
ITN (ИТН) would have an advantage in 13 (+108 runoffs)
BSP (БСП) would lead in 11 (+39 runoffs)

However the proposal is for a two round system - in seats where nobody has 50%+1 vote, the top two candidates qualify for a run-off. As in 2021 only 10 DPS candidates would manage to win outright, there would have been 230 run-offs, in the overwhelming majority of which the GERB candidate' lead would be very precarious when you consider that, by my count, they managed over 1/3 of the vote  in no more than 40 seats. ITN would be perfectly poised to collect all the combined opposition's votes and the GERB lead is usually close enough that even a 55:45 split of the others vote in favor of ITN would be enough to overtake them. And the split would be more like 80:20, considering that GERB has cannibalized all the parties that are close to them in outlook. ITN would also have an easy time in the few run-offs in which they would run against BSP, as the Socialists are rather toxic to a majority of voters almost everywhere. Applying a rather crude blanket formula of my projection how the vote flow would go in a second round, the end result would be something like:
ITN - 96-100 seats (sweeping almost every major Bulgarian city bar Blagoevgrad and, obviously, Sofia)
GERB - 84-88 seats
DB - 22-24 seats (all in Sofia)
DPS - 20-22 seats (in general DPS needs to be over 44% in the first round to stand a chance in Bulgarian plurality seats, as Bulgarians of all political persuasions tend to rally round whoever the non-DPS candidate is in the second round)
BSP - 4-8 seats
VMRO - 1 seat

Now, of course, the dynamics of a 'majoritarian' race would be completely different, the above is just a thought exercise. And this election was unusual in that there were 5 parties that all won districts. Back in 2017 only GERB, BSP and DPS would have had representation - and GERB, with only 32% of the vote, would have something like close to 170 seats after the second round
Logged
Battista Minola 1616
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,280
Vatican City State


Political Matrix
E: -5.55, S: -1.57

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #70 on: April 15, 2021, 05:19:36 PM »

Looking at the election map posted by GMantis (great work!) it seems to me that introducing single-member districts would be... sort of a death knell for ITN too. So I think I should not be surprised by that off the cuff remark. Am I wrong?

This site - which presents the election results as if the election was held in single member districts - is a fantastic resource to answer this question. I am surprised the guy who maintains it has been this diligent, but he has updated it with the 2021 results (also with a projection of a 120* seat parliament, as per the electoral rules referendum's third question) and it also has maps with the 2014 and 2017 results.

* although I believe the ITN proposal is for only 111 seats to be elected from Bulgaria proper, with 9 seats elected by the diaspora

Of course, the problem is that it is in Bulgarian and if your knowledge of Cyrillic is non-existent, I imagine it will be quite difficult to navigate the maps. But I can answer any questions that you may have.

Beautiful!

I actually can read Cyrillic, although my knowledge of the Bulgarian language is basically non-existent.

Quote
However the proposal is for a two round system - in seats where nobody has 50%+1 vote, the top two candidates qualify for a run-off. As in 2021 only 10 DPS candidates would manage to win outright, there would have been 230 run-offs, in the overwhelming majority of which the GERB candidate' lead would be very precarious when you consider that, by my count, they managed over 1/3 of the vote  in no more than 40 seats. ITN would be perfectly poised to collect all the combined opposition's votes and the GERB lead is usually close enough that even a 55:45 split of the others vote in favor of ITN would be enough to overtake them. And the split would be more like 80:20, considering that GERB has cannibalized all the parties that are close to them in outlook. ITN would also have an easy time in the few run-offs in which they would run against BSP, as the Socialists are rather toxic to a majority of voters almost everywhere. Applying a rather crude blanket formula of my projection how the vote flow would go in a second round, the end result would be something like:
ITN - 96-100 seats (sweeping almost every major Bulgarian city bar Blagoevgrad and, obviously, Sofia)
GERB - 84-88 seats
DB - 22-24 seats (all in Sofia)
DPS - 20-22 seats (in general DPS needs to be over 44% in the first round to stand a chance in Bulgarian plurality seats, as Bulgarians of all political persuasions tend to rally round whoever the non-DPS candidate is in the second round)
BSP - 4-8 seats
VMRO - 1 seat

Now, of course, the dynamics of a 'majoritarian' race would be completely different, the above is just a thought exercise. And this election was unusual in that there were 5 parties that all won districts. Back in 2017 only GERB, BSP and DPS would have had representation - and GERB, with only 32% of the vote, would have something like close to 170 seats after the second round

Aaah, I had not realized that. I can intuitively see why ITN would be favoured by a runoff system. And yes, obviously if such a system were actually implemented the dynamics would be completely different, but your thought exercise was very interesting nonetheless. Thank you!
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #71 on: April 26, 2021, 03:12:36 AM »
« Edited: April 26, 2021, 03:33:11 AM by Beagle »

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

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.

Logged
PetrSokol
Rookie
**
Posts: 104
Czech Republic


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #72 on: April 26, 2021, 05:59:39 AM »

What is pls the position of ITN in the cleavage West (EU, NATO) vs East (Russia)? Are they similar to the GERB or not?
Logged
Beagle
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 336
Bulgaria


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.01

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #73 on: April 26, 2021, 08:25:50 AM »

What is pls the position of ITN in the cleavage West (EU, NATO) vs East (Russia)? Are they similar to the GERB or not?
Good question to which I would also like an answer. ITN have been intentionally vague on foreign policy (as on many other issues). They are not conspicuously pro-Russian like BSP or most of the 'nationalist' parties, but as a populist party, they're prone to switching sides like a weather vane. As of today, I'd agree that they are similar to GERB - with the caveat that GERB is also notoriously fickle on this issue.
Logged
PetrSokol
Rookie
**
Posts: 104
Czech Republic


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #74 on: April 26, 2021, 11:17:16 AM »

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?
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 ... 14  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.063 seconds with 13 queries.