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

[RGM2609]

What was your experience like in your precint, anything worth noting you noticed? Did DB win?

[Antonio the Sixth]

snip

I see. So the most pro-Putin parties would be, in this order, Vazrazhdane, BV, and BSP?

[Beagle]

What has happened of ISNI? Did it disband or did it simply fail to recover from not entering the previous Parliament? And if the latter, is it about to disband now?

It splintered into 5 (five!) component parts. One of them (the Bulgarian Volt branch) went to PP in November 2021 and their leader was just reelected. One of two left-wing components went with BSP without much success, the other sat this election out, but worked for BV behind the scenes. The 'Old Right'-aligned component was begging PP and DB to run together, once it became clear there would be no joint campaign (or rather that nobody was interested in giving the two leaders winnable seats), they too sat the election out. A few microparties went in other directions too - one of their coalition partners now served as a launch vehicle for BV, another took part in a hopeless coalition started by a couple of ITN renegades (that received all of 0.20%).

But by far the most popular ISNI component was the IS part - led by Maya Manolova, long time BSP parliamentarian, ex-Ombudsman and 2019 runner-up for Sofia Mayor. They ran a spirited campaign with all sort of gimmicks and got 1.01% of the vote, so at least they will get some state financing. However, Manolova's dream of becoming Sofia Mayor in 2023 is surely over, you can't win pro-Western Sofia with a strongly pro-Russian slant.

What was your experience like in your precint, anything worth noting you noticed? Did DB win?

Sorry, nothing really noteworthy other than a drunk voter or two. PP beat DB by 4 votes, but they (PP and DB) combined for 46% of the vote. In July 21 DB had won a tad over 40%, in Nov DB had 25% and PP had 26%, so not much movement.

[Beagle]

snip

I see. So the most pro-Putin parties would be, in this order, Vazrazhdane, BV, and BSP?

Yup. But this order applies to the party leadership; among the actual voters it's Vazrazhdane, BSP and BV. And I would say that (the few) BSP voters under 30 are generally more pro-Putin than their Vazrazhdane counterparts, who are more nihilistic than pro-anything. A friend who is in his mid-20s said something which rings true, although my sample size is very limited: 'Most Bulgarian Gen Z follow the same path: Nazi at 14 -> Communist at 16 -> regular alcoholic by 20 at the latest'.

What was your experience like in your precint, anything worth noting you noticed? Did DB win?

Oh, forgot to mention: our Vazrazhdane counterpart had Vstavay strana ogromnaya [a Soviet WWII anthem] as his ringtone and kept his phone at the loudest setting. One of the voters lodged a complaint (although the guy had left to take his call a the time). The PP representative, who was the chair of the polling station, made up the white lie that phones make it difficult to hear if the machines operate properly and asked us all to set them to vibrate

 

[Antonio the Sixth]

snip

I see. So the most pro-Putin parties would be, in this order, Vazrazhdane, BV, and BSP?

Yup. But this order applies to the party leadership; among the actual voters it's Vazrazhdane, BSP and BV. And I would say that (the few) BSP voters under 30 are generally more pro-Putin than their Vazrazhdane counterparts, who are more nihilistic than pro-anything. A friend who is in his mid-20s said something which rings true, although my sample size is very limited: 'Most Bulgarian Gen Z follow the same path: Nazi at 14 -> Communist at 16 -> regular alcoholic by 20 at the latest'.

Oh boy. Well, I guess that does explain a lot about your election results.

Either way I'm mostly focused on the leadership, since they're the ones who will be making policy. How would you rate the probability of each of these parties ending up in the government coalition?

[GMantis]

Map of election results by districts:



Since there was so little variation in GERB's results, I switched to a 5% increment to show better their strongest and weakest districts.

[Beagle]

Oh boy. Well, I guess that does explain a lot about your election results.

Either way I'm mostly focused on the leadership, since they're the ones who will be making policy. How would you rate the probability of each of these parties ending up in the government coalition?

The probability for any sort of government coalition, as in Bulgarian parties with more than 120 MPs actually agreeing to cooperate, nominate a mutually acceptable PM and ministers from each of the parties, is infinitesimally small. If one forms, it would be only because of the heavy external pressure both from Europe and the US for us to get our [act] together. In that scenario, the likeliest combinations exclude all of the above parties. The math isn't mathing for virtually any other plausible coalition.

A very rough guesstimate of the probabilities as they appear today:
60% - the new parliament dissolves after 3 failed attempts to form a government (probably after passing the budget of the caretakers), Radev appoints his 5th cabinet, round 5 in February or March of 2023;
25% - an assortment of parties (the only one I would categorically exclude is Vazrazhdane) support a short-lived 'technocratic' government with the main goal to guarantee and distribute the EU recovery funding;
13% - one or both of PP/DB bite the bullet and enter into an arrangement with GERB, most likely by having DPS support the investiture vote without providing any ministers. Some pundits have mooted the possibility of GERB voting in a PP/DB minority government, but after Borisov's arrest, GERB are really hostile to PP's leadership. Today GERB announced that the government formation talks will be led on their behalf by 2011-2016 President Plevneliev - without going into too much detail, this diminishes this probability even further.
1% - a party (most likely BV on the third round of government formation) proposes the current caretaker government for a vote, enough parties are scared to go to the polls again to vote them in, they agree to serve until the local elections next year, but most likely flounder at some earlier point;
1% - GERB form some sort of unholy alliance/national salvation government with any 3 of DPS, BSP, DB and BV - or just 2 of them and buy off enough MPs from other parties to get to the magic 121 number

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks. Very informative.

It sounds like Bulgaria is engulfed in a serious political crisis with no end in sight. Best of luck dealing with that.

[GMantis]

Map of election results by municipalities:



Some observations:

- Though not as immediately clear as last year, GERB has consistently done better in more rural areas (especially where they control what is euphemistically called the "company vote") and worse in larger cities.

-The results in Sofia are quite comparable to the April 2021 election, only with PP in the role of DB. In fact they'd probably have done better if they weren't competing for the same type of voters.

-With the abysmal turnout and the narrow split between the non-minority parties, DPS has won the most municipalities ever. Simultaneously, BSP had its worst result in geographical terms as well as in percentage of votes and rank.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Is the reason DPS won a lot of municipalities in Montana Oblast but zero in Sliven Oblast despite the latter being just as Romani and much more Turkish (I love Wikipedia) that BSP has much more residual strength in the former just like in all the northwest which lowered GERB's score? And relatedly, why is the northwest the most Socialist area of Bulgaria?

[Beagle]

Is the reason DPS won a lot of municipalities in Montana Oblast but zero in Sliven Oblast despite the latter being just as Romani and much more Turkish (I love Wikipedia) that BSP has much more residual strength in the former just like in all the northwest which lowered GERB's score?

Yeah, succinctly put. My mother is from Montana, so I could go on another gratuitous multi page tangent, but I'll just mark three additional factors:
- there is a difference in the make-up of the Roma population in the two districts - Sliven is much more Kalderash, the Montana Roma are mostly Kopanari; the distinction these days is becoming less and less, since both groups have switched to surviving on remittances from family making their living in Western Europe. But the thing is, the Roma vote in Montana is less uniform for DPS, however it is much more socially acceptable for ethnic Bulgarians to vote DPS there. You get villages without any Roma (or Turkish) inhabitants voting DPS in the Northwest, which would be unthinkable anywhere else in the country.

- chicken or egg situation, of course, but GERB have less mayors and local influence in Montana region, which makes it harder for them to organize a machine vote there. By comparison, they are in total control of Sliven.

- I'm sure you realize that, but land doesn't vote. The municipalities in Sliven region are all populous, with the smallest having 13 thousand inhabitants. By comparison, just 3 of the 11 municipalities in Montana have a population exceeding 10 thousand. More than a few of the DPS municipalities in the Northwest were won by margins of a couple of dozen votes. And, given the abject poverty of most of these places, vote buying is very fruitful there.

And here I will still go on a minor tangent - with a huge thank you to GMantis - because I was curious which municipalities have an unbroken BSP streak since 1990. As far as I can see, there are only 32 remaining (3 more fell in 2021):
EDIT: turns out Brezovo fell in 2022
- Brezovo in the center of the country, with a population of 6170 (a decrease of 16% between the 2011 and 2021 census) - a rural, mountainous place without any tourism, mining or significant industry. The municipal center has a population of 1610, which is positively metropolitan in comparison with...
- Makresh in the northwest of the country, with a population of 1067 (a decrease of 35% (!) between the 2011 and 2021 census) - a rural, mountainous place without any tourism, mining or significant industry. The municipal center has a population of 416, which is positively metropolitan in comparison with...
- Treklyano in the west of the country, with a population of 434 (a decrease of 32% (!) between the 2011 and 2021 census) - a rural, mountainous place without any tourism, mining or significant industry. The municipal center has a population of a 195. It is home to 7 of the municipality's total of 8 (not a typo) children aged between 0 and 5. Given that the municipal council is 11-member-strong and that each municipality has at least 16 required employees, about 10% of the population are actually directly employed in governing or administrating Treklyano. This is the smallest municipality in Bulgaria and there is nothing justifying its continued existence.

And relatedly, why is the northwest the most Socialist area of Bulgaria?

In a word: demography. A more detailed answer would, by necessity, include history - at least the 1923 Communist uprising, but probably also late 18th-early 19th century Ottoman Empire history and, maybe, the 1688 Catholic uprising. I could also speak about how the Bulgarian Northwest was the last place in the country to be reached by the Columbian exchange and how the region feels the effects to this day. But the simplest answer is that for economic reasons the young people from the region are emigrating in droves - internally, mostly to Sofia, but also to the EU - leaving behind an increasingly aging, impoverished and nostalgic population.

[GMantis]

Is the reason DPS won a lot of municipalities in Montana Oblast but zero in Sliven Oblast despite the latter being just as Romani and much more Turkish (I love Wikipedia) that BSP has much more residual strength in the former just like in all the northwest which lowered GERB's score? And relatedly, why is the northwest the most Socialist area of Bulgaria?

Not really. DPS' vote in Montana Oblast is well above the minority percentage in every municipality (according to the 2011 census, meaning that it's likely higher now, but unlikely to explain such large discrepancies), while it's below that in all municipalities of Sliven Oblast. For example, there were only 21% minorities in Valchedram, but DPS received 57% of the vote there; 16% minorities in Yakimovo, but DPS received 46% of the vote; etc. Meanwhile, in Kotel where ethnic Bulgarians are less than 40%, DPS received just 17% of the vote; in Sliven municipality with 17% minority population, DPS got just 4%. The real explanation is control of voters. Poor and uneducated voters (among which the Romanis are disproportionately represented) are far too often manipulated, bribed or even coerced into voting for whichever party is able or willing to get their votes. The structure of Romani society, which has strong elements of clannishness, means that its even easier to control their vote if you can win over their leaders, which the DPS has managed over the years. And the reason is not, as I thought for a time, that DPS managed to gain the loyalty of these voters by appealing to minority interests - DPS results in local elections in Montana oblast have been abysmal, because DPS wouldn't waste efforts on elections they can't win anyway. As for Sliven oblast, the minority groups there are mainly located in two of the four municipalities - Sliven itself and Kotel. In a large city like Sliven, it's far more difficult to gain exclusive control of voters like that, because there are many competing interesting to control them effectively and a more prosperous economy making pressuring voters more difficult. As for Kotel, DPS is trumped there by a different type of control. Basically GERB, having first seized the local administration, then forced the majority of employers (which aren't that many in a poor municipality like Kotel to align with them, after which there was no significant difficulties in turning out the vote in favor of GERB. This is what I called the "campaign vote" in one of my previous posts. The actual mechanisms of achieving this varies from offering economic incentives to outright threatening employees that they will lose their jobs if they don't support the correct party. These dark blue municipalities which sprang out of nowhere on election maps are just the most visible part of a huge distortion of the democratic process and one of the main reasons GERB continue to be nearly unbeatable despite their dubious at best record.

As for the northwest, there are multiple reasons why it is (or rather was) the most Socialist area in Bulgaria. Some of these are historical. The northwest was the main core of the uprising the Communist Party staged in 1923 and consequently suffered the worst reprisals after the uprising was quelled. As as a consequence, it was one of the main areas of partisan activity during WWII, which solidified the region as stronghold of the Communist Party. Perhaps more importantly, the northwest has the greatest concentration of voters inclined to back the BSP. It's among the poorest regions in Bulgaria, it's very rural and the population is older than the average - all of these factors skew it in favor of the BSP. Furthermore, it has next to no Turks, so DPS until recently had little success there. Of course, with the passage of time, traditional voting becomes less important, while the consistent inability of BSP to be a real socialist party has gradually alienated its voters. And in even in such an aging region the number of people who vote for BSP solely because of nostalgia for the pre-1989 period naturally decline. Furthermore, DPS has made great inroads with the Romani, who previously either supported BSP or didn't vote at all, weakening the party further.

[GMantis]

Sorry I didn't see your post Beagle before I posted mine. Not that we have a very divergent viewpoint, but I would have tried to reword my answer. And while I certainly appreciate your answer, there are some points with which I can't agree.

Yeah, succinctly put. My mother is from Montana, so I could go on another gratuitous multi page tangent, but I'll just mark three additional factors:
- there is a difference in the make-up of the Roma population in the two districts - Sliven is much more Kalderash, the Montana Roma are mostly Kopanari; the distinction these days is becoming less and less, since both groups have switched to surviving on remittances from family making their living in Western Europe. But the thing is, the Roma vote in Montana is less uniform for DPS, however it is much more socially acceptable for ethnic Bulgarians to vote DPS there. You get villages without any Roma (or Turkish) inhabitants voting DPS in the Northwest, which would be unthinkable anywhere else in the country.

The Romani voters in Sliven oblast went over en mass to GERB after voting DPS for many years so I don't think there is really much of a difference in their outlook from those in Montana. As for Bulgarians voting massively for DPS, I have my doubts - though of course I won't dispute your personal observations. Still, from the rather cursory check I made it seems that DPS is heavily concentrated in exactly those villages which have a large Romani population. And many Romani don't identify their ethnicity in censuses anyway.

- chicken or egg situation, of course, but GERB have less mayors and local influence in Montana region, which makes it harder for them to organize a machine vote there. By comparison, they are in total control of Sliven.

The problem with this argument is that GERB is very much in control in many of these municipalities as well. The mayors of Yakimovo and Brusartsi, which both had over 40% votes for DSP, are from GERB from example. DPS meanwhile has next to no influence in the oblast - no mayors, no control of municipal councils. Which is why I question the theory of many ethnic Bulgarians voting for them - if they don't control the municipalities, how would they "persuade" so many to vote for them?

- Brezovo in the center of the country, with a population of 6170 (a decrease of 16% between the 2011 and 2021 census) - a rural, mountainous place without any tourism, mining or significant industry. The municipal center has a population of 1610, which is positively metropolitan in comparison with...

No, Brezovo's actually in the middle of the Thracian plain (see map) - probably the most prosperous agricultural region in the country. I think the real reason for its long support for BSP was that it was a hotspot of partisan activity in WWII.

- Treklyano in the west of the country, with a population of 434 (a decrease of 32% (!) between the 2011 and 2021 census) - a rural, mountainous place without any tourism, mining or significant industry. The municipal center has a population of a 195. It is home to 7 of the municipality's total of 8 (not a typo) children aged between 0 and 5. Given that the municipal council is 11-member-strong and that each municipality has at least 16 required employees, about 10% of the population are actually directly employed in governing or administrating Treklyano. This is the smallest municipality in Bulgaria and there is nothing justifying its continued existence.

Certainly. The problem is that no municipality has ever been abolished(Srednogorie was dissolved by partitioning it into six municipalities, which is probably not what you had in mind).  In fact the trend has been exactly the opposite. Since the fall of communism, when the opinion of the people began to be taken into account, 16 new municipalities have been created, some consisting of a single town - all due to popular demand. I'm certain that no one but the actual inhabitants of Treklyano would be more adamantly opposed to their municipality being abolished and they have good justification for that. As bad as the demographic and economic situation is there, it would decline even faster without it being a separate municipality. For example, Treklyano has a basic school, which it would never be able to justify if it wasn't a municipality center. Without the school, it would likely lose what little remained of their economically active population.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Thanks to both of you for your replies! They are much more informative and in depth than I could ever ask for. Posts like these are why this thread is one of the best in the entire forum - simply unmatched.

[Beagle]

So, after all that, the Bulgarian politicians recognized the burden of the moment and, while recognizing the many tangible and intangible differences that separate them, they used the past two months to engage in conversations about the local and global economy and the EU recovery funds and the war in Ukraine and justice reform and constitutional law and I am kidding. There is no particular end in sight, either to the perpetual (and common) squabbling, or to the general deadlock, with no party or even broad camp achieving anything close to a breakthrough. In all likelihood, there is no end in sight of the elections, either.

But with the end of the year comes a time to reflect on what one won and lost over the past period and I thought I'd write up the winter of Bulgarian broad and deep discontent resigned apathy through the eyes of the main political players.

President Rumen Radev
WON: the dubious privilege of governing Bulgaria through the caretaker government(s) for now and the foreseeable future; free invites to the Vienna Philharmonic NYE concert;
LOST: the Schengen-zone accession fight (just like the North Macedonia fight earlier); a lot of the smartbeautiful support (because of his role in the Petkov government downfall, the actions of his caretakers etc.) and, in general, the uncontested position as (informal) leader of the vast Bulgarian anti-GERB majority. He is still the most popular politician in the country, but his approval rate is markedly down (in the negative territory now), and it is no longer a given that a party that he founds or supports will automatically become the biggest. For the past 6 months or so, I thought the likeliest outcome out of all, well, what this thread is about, is for Radev to establish some personalist Sanacja-lite regime, which, like Boyko Borisov before him, would pay lip service to parliamentary democracy, but in fact would be rule by fiat. At this point, though, I think his broad support is no longer there and a pure Radev-ite party would just add another fracturing point to the already splintered Bulgarian society.

GERB:
WON:every vote in parliament of actual significance - see the spoiler if you're interested about the actual issues of the day;
LOST: the purely symbolic vote over a proposed 'expert' non-partisan government headed by a renowned neuro-surgeon - the government was never likely to pass, but it was surprising that the cabinet included a fair few blasts from the past, with a number of BSP- and DPS-adjacent politicians, the obligatory Tsar government throwback and one or two PP-ers. Mostly, though, it was full of GERB B- and C-listers. A more permanent loss, which GERB surely must acknowledge now, is the tolerance, not to speak of trust, of the overwhelming majority of Bulgarians. Despite the chaos of the past year, there is no discernible flow back to GERB.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

Reminder of the state of play in the 240 seat National Assembly: GERB - 67, PP - 53, DPS - 36, Vazrazhdane - 27, BSP  25*, DB - 20, BV - 12

The meaningful votes 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
- Repealing (to all extents and purposes) voting by machine, restoring the paper ballot and some other electoral code trickery: GERB+DPS+BSP
- Slashing the insane amounts of deficit social spending which were voted for in the first reading of the 2023 budget amendments: GERB+DPS+DB+BV
- [symbolic] Military aid to Ukraine: GERB+PP+DPS+DB+BV
- Buying 8 more F-16s: GERB+parts of PP+DPS+DB+BV

FAILED:
- the GERB-proposed 'expert' government: GERB+DPS+BV
- A whistleblower protection act, the passing of which is tied to EU funding: PP+DB+BV

PP:
WON: I guess the support of the majority of Atlas forumers, as they (or at least one wing of the party) are positioning themselves into the sort of economically left-wing, socially liberal, pro-Western party that many here were clamoring for BSP to magically transform itself into. Of course, each of the statements can be qualified - they are still against raising taxes since 'the country is choc-full of money, but it gets stolen'. That wing of the party also voted against further F-16s, since the money would be better used to raise pensions (for the 5th raise in 12 months).
LOST: the image of a competence which the Harvard crew embodied early on (see also DB). BSP support is also no longer expected after the fight over the paper ballot and Ukraine aid. More pertinently, they lost even the semblance of support by President Radev they once enjoyed. Last month Radev launched a broadside against PP, calling them crooks and charlatans, and labeling himself as the first victim to be swindled when he appointed the Harvard crew to his caretaker government.

DPS:
WON: This is not particularly new, but - indispensability. As in, 'there is no way to govern without at least being tolerated by us'. And by this I don't mean parliamentary support, but rather the captured prosecutorship, administrative courts, state revenue agency and all other ostensibly non-political institutions where DPS has gained control over the past two decades.
LOST: by and large, their EU affiliation. For many years, ALDE was happy enough with DPS, as they funded gatherings and conferences, wined, dined and entertained the visiting high-, mid- and even low-tier functionaries and, all in all, shared the loot liberally. The present RE leadership, however, is apparently less tolerant of DPS, so they have limited the joint activities to a minimum (which may or may not have something to do with their courtship of PP).

Vazrazhdane:
WON: Vazrazhdane are the party of petulant naysayers, so the more bills that are passed 'because the EU said so', the better. And, given that the brief life of this parliament will be occupied mostly with measures needed for the release of EU recovery funds/Schengen accession/Euro adoption, they make much hay of the 'all other parties are bootlickers and cronies, we are the only one who want an independent Bulgaria'.
LOST: Apparently, the prospects of a breakthrough or at least a significant increase in support once people saw their increased parliamentary group in action. As mentioned earlier, I have no doubt that their platform is more popular than the 10-12% in support measured in polls. It's just that they are so clearly grifters and that the persons that they most appeal to are the least likely to make the effort to turn out, that they are stagnant in support.

BSP:
WON: Got nuffin.
LOST: ooh, where do we start:
- 1 MP (who got expelled because of his support for Ukraine and opposition to the paper ballot);
- their sole Sofia district mayor (pretty much likewise);
- the court case about the earlier expulsion of Ninova's opposition from the party leadership, so they are now reinstated and they are now stymied;
- the entirety of their party organization in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second largest city, which has followed the local oligarch/party boss into the folds of GERB (although this is not exactly new).

DB:
WON: Also not new (or particularly helpful), but GERB's unsolicited support for a government with the third mandate, as long as PP are excluded. Also, given that the smartbeautiful tend to be hyper-political and very high-propensity voters, the decline in polling participation rates/turnout means that their share is looking likely to increase, even if the actual voter count remains pretty much the same.
LOST: The separate identity between PP and DB, at least early on in the life of the parliament. Both acted in a way which could be summarized as, 'it is incumbent on the caretaker government/GERB to find support for their policies from DPS and Vazrazhdane; if they wanted [something] done, they should not have brought down our government, which would have made it reality without the need for new elections'. This ITN-like recalcitrance, IMO, is unlikely to have made anyone likelier to vote for them. DB did help vote down the increase in the minimum wage/pensions and other social benefits that PP proposed, as Bulgaria is looking at an unprecedented deficit for 2023, but in general it is hard to explain why one should vote for DB over PP unless it is for the personalities (like I do) and most DB-ers are tainted by a long political career compared to the PP newcomers.

BV:
WON: the image of a sensible, grown-up party? Hard to say for me, really, I know nobody who would admit to have voted for BV, nor have I stumbled upon any pundit analysis that rings remotely true about BV.
LOST: The voters who went for Yanev because of his pro-Russian statements must have been sorely disappointed to see BV by and large toe the 'Euroatlantic' line in parliament, issuing statements of condemnation against Russia and supporting the military aid to Ukraine. Yanev, who famously got sacked from government because he refused to refer to the invasion as a 'war' and insisted on the term 'special military operation' enlightened us all that the actual start of the war was the mobilization order by Putin and since then there is a war of aggression against a sovereign state which must be opposed by all means, short of direct military involvement. Which... OK, I guess?

ITN:
WON: uh, free publicity for Slavi Trifonov's facebook screeds. Also, the party subsidy. Yes, despite holding a referendum to limit the party subsidies, ostentatiously returning the amounts due to ITN back to the budget in 2021 and early '22 and other posturing, nowadays ITN take the full amount they are entitled to.
LOST: virtually all of the party's ex MPs, who have departed for the caretaker government, PP, BSP, BV or private life. The pollsters still register some signs of life - after all, the party at the end came just 12 thousand votes short of re-entering parliament due to strong holds in the vote abroad, particularly in the UK and Spain - but there is no serious prospect of them making the threshold in the upcoming new election.

And yes, nothing has changed about the likelihood for a new election - it is not a done deal, but it is by far the likelier option than a government formed by DB or BV with the third mandate (for many reasons, it is unlikely that Radev will present BSP with the third mandate for the fourth time). Strictly speaking, the ball right now is with PP, but they have made it abundantly clear that they are simply going through the motions, setting impossible hurdles just to propose a minority government (between themselves and DB only). The first hurdle was for President Radev to veto the return of the paper ballot, which he did - but the veto was overridden by GERB+DPS+BSP - and now they demand 'a sizable support' in parliament of a statement of priorities, some of which are impossible for GERB/DPS to contemplate, let alone endorse, such as the removal of the chief prosecutor or the investigation of the massive highway construction giveaway. So, barring a huge surprise, we are heading for the next round of early elections on 19 or 26 March, or possibly 2 April.

Polls for a spring election are eerily unanimous: other than a further - potentially catastrophic - decline in turnout, nothing in particular will change. PP are clearly bleeding support (mostly to the abstention rate), BV's entry is on a knife's edge, DPS may or may not choose to mobilize the Turkish vote, but realistically GERB will again be short of a majority, even with DPS support, and an anti-GERB coalition will be even more of a pipe-dream, given how unpalatable Vazrazhdane are. The dark joke is that the parties are already laying the groundwork for the combined regular local/early parliamentary elections in the fall. At least I hope it is a joke.

In light of all this, I guess it is pretty understandable how in recent surveys 2 out of 3 Bulgarians expect the country as a whole to be worse off in 2023 than in 2022.

[Beagle]

And yes, nothing has changed about the likelihood for a new election - it is not a done deal, but it is by far the likelier option than a government formed by DB or BV with the third mandate (for many reasons, it is unlikely that Radev will present BSP with the third mandate for the fourth time). S

Uh, yeah, about that... I went to a DB struggle session activist event today, the scuttlebutt is - in light of the under fire crypto pyramid scheme lender Nexo's ties to PP and DB* - the third mandate, which was supposed to go to DB will instead be indeed presented to BSP for the fourth time. If true, this makes a new election on 26 March or 2 April virtually certain.

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

*
- an ex-PP parliamentarian was a Nexo manager, another MP had common companies with a Nexo founder, who himself was a 2014-2017 Reformist Bloc MP
- DB received sizable donations from Nexo employees

 

[Sadader]

So, after all that, the Bulgarian politicians recognized the burden of the moment and, while recognizing the many tangible and intangible differences that separate them, they used the past two months to engage in conversations about the local and global economy and the EU recovery funds and the war in Ukraine and justice reform and constitutional law and I am kidding. There is no particular end in sight, either to the perpetual (and common) squabbling, or to the general deadlock, with no party or even broad camp achieving anything close to a breakthrough. In all likelihood, there is no end in sight of the elections, either.

But with the end of the year comes a time to reflect on what one won and lost over the past period and I thought I'd write up the winter of Bulgarian broad and deep discontent resigned apathy through the eyes of the main political players.

Haha, this thread is really fantastic. Thank you for all the detail.

Euro adoption seems to be the only thing the parties can agree on (along with EU funds absorption/Schengen it seems). As far as I understand, assuming the Commission waives the inflation requirement given the invasion of Ukraine, there's only one facet that Bulgaria isn't complying with - that "each Member State shall ensure that its national legislation, including the statutes of its national central bank, is compatible with these Treaties." European media seem to just be assuming that Bulgaria will meet the legal compatibility criteria by the June convergence assessment then and so will adopt the Euro in January 2024.

But is the dead parliament actually making progress on conforming to the legislation or will Bulgaria fail to meet the legal requirements by June? What even needs to be done? The talk about technical negotiations seems like malarkey to me, surely there's legislation that needs to be passed.

[Storr]

Petkov is going public with what he did to help Ukraine:

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1615826161908551682?s=20&t=qkU4xxsq...

[Beagle]

Haha, this thread is really fantastic. Thank you for all the detail.

Euro adoption seems to be the only thing the parties can agree on (along with EU funds absorption/Schengen it seems). As far as I understand, assuming the Commission waives the inflation requirement given the invasion of Ukraine, there's only one facet that Bulgaria isn't complying with - that "each Member State shall ensure that its national legislation, including the statutes of its national central bank, is compatible with these Treaties." European media seem to just be assuming that Bulgaria will meet the legal compatibility criteria by the June convergence assessment then and so will adopt the Euro in January 2024.

But is the dead parliament actually making progress on conforming to the legislation or will Bulgaria fail to meet the legal requirements by June? What even needs to be done? The talk about technical negotiations seems like malarkey to me, surely there's legislation that needs to be passed.

Thanks!

At the aforementioned DB event, we were told to get ready for a three-in-one election on 29 October (give or take a week): this would entail the regular local elections, the sixth parliamentary election within 2.5 years - I originally wrote early parliamentary election, but at this point might as well call it the regular biannual election - and an anti-Euro-adoption referendum, proposed by Vazrazhdane (who are actively gathering signatures a few hundred meters from where I'm writing right now). For constitutional law reasons, this will be termed 'a postponement of the adoption of the Euro until 2042', or whenever. Even if it takes place, this referendum will share the fate of all other modern Bulgarian referenda*, but, ideally, the systemic parties would prefer to not have to deal with that transparent Vazrazhdane vote-boosting stunt on top of all the others.

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A brief history of modern Bulgarian referendii
Under Bulgarian law a referendum needs 50%+1 vote to be binding, as well as a turnout that is equal or more than the turnout for the last held parliamentary election. If it fails either threshold, but "Yes" prevails and the turnout exceeds 20% of the total, the question reverts to parliament, which must take a vote on the issue within 3 months

2013 - Belene Nuclear Power Station construction referendum (BSP stunt) - reached the minimum 20% turnout threshold by the skin of its teeth, was approved by 60%:37%, rejected in parliament, 10 years later the Belene NPP still continues to be a literal and metaphorical quagmire, a zombie that still rears its head from time to time, but is less and less likely to be built with each passing year

2015 - Remote electronic voting referendum - (President Plevneliev [GERB] stunt) - was approved by 70%:25%, passed in parliament as a declaration only, no real effort was ever expended in making remote electronic voting a reality, the 2022 amendments to the electoral code even removed the brief mention of remote voting at some unspecified point in the future.

2016 - Electoral reforms referendum - (Slavi Trifonov [future ITN] stunt) - or as I like to call it, Electoral reform referendum pt. 2, electric boogaloo, had 3 components - single member districts, compulsory voting, reduction in party subsidies - the 1st and the 3rd passed 72%:21%, the 2nd 61:34% - parliament stalled on all 3, none of the measures was ever really implemented in the way the referendum proponents campaigned on.

So yes, referendums are batting a solid 0/5 in Bulgaria, if Vazrazhdane manage to pull off theirs, I'm pretty sure it will go 0/6

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For bemusement purposes only:
When going through the proposed referenda that are currently collecting signatures, I saw that two committees would like to ask the Bulgarian populace the following questions:
- should Bulgaria enter into a 2 year negotiation process for withdrawal from the EU unless it is offered substantially better conditions for staying and those are approved by a further referendum
- should all transactions with the US, Russia, the IMF and the WHO be temporarily halted until the privileges for Ukrainian refugees are extended to all Bulgarian citizens, as well as other refugees
- [as an extension to the previous question] should the number of Ukrainian refugees in Bulgaria be regulated to be equal with the number of refugees from other conflict countries which... the organizers may not have fully thought through
- should courts use a binding lie detector test as the chief resolution method
- should an absolute monarchy be established under a genetic relative of Prince Alexander of Battenberg (or two other Bulgarian historical figures). So, Prince Harry, who is the Prince's great(x7)-nephew, can finally be useful for once!

 

So, to the best of my knowledge, GERB, PP, DPS, most of BSP, DB and BV, albeit with some internal dissent, are all working towards passing the needed legislation, a lot of which is esoteric in nature and does not attract any media attention. The two chief obstacles, afaik, are:
- a new National Bank Law, which has been a significant bone of contention - and in fact proved the impetus for ITN bringing down the Petkov government, since they withdrew their support after PP, BSP and DB failed to support their candidate for the governorship of the central bank, leaving the incumbent in place (for the 9th year from his 6-year term).

- the Euro adoption law itself, which is ready, but is supposed to pass only after the final approval has been granted and the wheels are set irreversibly in motion.

However, the deficit to GDP% may prove to be a stumbling block. The madcap spending of the Petkov government (based on the argument that once corruption has been slashed, taxation revenues will grow exponentially), and the perpetual campaign mode in the short-lived parliaments made the 2022 budget, which was extended until at least May 2023, quite unbalanced and projections are for a deficit exceeding 3% for 2023.
 
Still, the political will is definitely there on both sides and I think the process is more likely than not to end with Euro adoption on 1 January 2024, even if the legal framework and/or the deficit ratio criteria are not completely fulfilled. And if the government at the time (which is almost 100% certain to still be the caretakers Radev appoints next) signs the paperwork, the referendum should not take place, even if there are enough signatures. Although the Constitutional court has been acting up lately, so who knows what they will decide.

Petkov is going public with what he did to help Ukraine:

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1615826161908551682?s=20&t=qkU4xxsq...

Well, that's one version of events :D

[Frodo]

It will be either March 26 or April 2:

Bulgaria to hold new snap general election after parties fail to form government

[Beagle]

It will be either March 26 or April 2:

Bulgaria to hold new snap general election after parties fail to form government

March is almost certainly out of the question, Radev said in an interview that a) parliament has a lot of urgent laws to pass, so unless they descend into chaos (always a possibility), he would like to give them (at least) a week before dissolution and b) Bulgaria switches to summer time on 26 March, so it would be extra rough for the poll workers to have to count paper ballots manually on an hour less of sleep.

Now, hypothetically, Radev can postpone dissolving parliament for an indefinite term, as the Constitution is mum on this issue. Some have suggested he should wait until both the Western (9 April) and Orthodox Easter (16 April) have passed, but there is no love lost between this parliament configuration and him, so I think it is extremely unlikely Radev will prolong the life of this parliament.

Radev also confirmed that the present caretaker PM - Galab Donev - will continue in place in the next caretaker ministry. He also took the opportunity to bemoan, among other things, the military aid to Ukraine, asking, 'Ukraine is short of weapons today, but it will be short of manpower tomorrow, what will do then'.

[Beagle]

Update:

- Election date is set for 2 April;

- PP and DB are increasingly likely to run a joint list. For the third time in this thread, I will quote myself, re PP:

I think it is fair to say that their current image is of yet another party designed to appeal to the Sofia young-ish well-off good-government-type professionals that form the stereotype of the smartbeautiful and are rightly or wrongly resented by a significant proportion of the other voters.

Of course, especially in the last election of 2021, PP proved themselves to have much more wide-ranging support, but they and DB have a substantial overlap in policy, positioning, voter and candidate profiles, and a joint list makes quite a lot of sense. But public and especially private polling show that the joint result is quite likely to be less than the sum of its parts. It remains to be seen if PP's turnaround (since it was they who rejected the unity overtures before) will stick once the jockeying over the positions in the candidate lists begins in earnest.

- Another 'unity' list will be a new entry: Levitsata - [The Left]. The stated purpose of Levitsata is to unite every BSP splinter under the sun and the founding event did see virtually every has-been face in attendance - from the 1997 Euroleft founder, through assorted communists and natbols, 'progressive' microparties, inner-party opposition that has or has not yet been formally expelled from BSP, through to the 3 biggest dwarfs: ex-President Parvanov (ABV), Doncheva (,movement 21 [sic]) and Manolova (ISBG). The unimaginative moniker is probably because "F* Ninova", while quite concisely summarizing the unity list's sole raison d'etre and much of their policies [the only other issue which unites all is Putinism], could not have possibly survived muster from the Electoral commission. Manolova is probably taking the reigns or at least is seen as the leader of the joint effort. Like in the previous item, we will see just how joint the effort is once the lists begin to take shape. Deadline for filing jointly or separately is in roughly 2 weeks.
 

But is the dead parliament actually making progress on conforming to the legislation or will Bulgaria fail to meet the legal requirements by June? What even needs to be done? The talk about technical negotiations seems like malarkey to me, surely there's legislation that needs to be passed.

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. Because insurance in Bulgaria is significantly cheaper, a number of cars that ply the EU roads (mostly in Italy, Greece and Spain) are registered and insured in Bulgaria. When they get in trouble, the foreign insurers claim back whatever they paid to the injured party from the Bulgarian issuer of the liability insurance. 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.

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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

 

[Mike88]

Another stalemate is the likeliest outcome, isn't it? If that happens, what's next?

[Beagle]

Another stalemate is the likeliest outcome, isn't it? If that happens, what's next?

Yes. But... [see below]. If that happens:

At the aforementioned DB event, we were told to get ready for a three-in-one election on 29 October (give or take a week): this would entail the regular local elections, the sixth parliamentary election within 2.5 years - I originally wrote early parliamentary election, but at this point might as well call it the regular biannual election - and an anti-Euro-adoption referendum, proposed by Vazrazhdane

The But... part comes in because Ninova's perfunctory attempt to form a government with the third mandate was calling a "Leaders' meeting". She has run the 'let's settle this like men' joke deep into the ground (this was perhaps the 50th time she had called out Boyko Borisov to debate), but this time Borisov actually accepted the invitation. Also in attendance were the leaders of DPS and BV. PP and DB declined because of BSP's insistence on the paper ballot and because they felt that a joint meeting including GERB and DPS is pointless - they wanted bilateral talks with BSP. Vazrazhdane declined because, well, Vazrazhdane.

The point is that the four parties in attendance - GERB, DPS, BSP and BV - declared afterwards that, in view of the situation, the red lines of the past are getting blurred. While the word 'coalition' is still dirty, they tentatively agreed to at least examine the possibility of supporting an 'expert' government in the mold of the neurosurgeon-led cabinet proposed by GERB - but only after the new elections. No (sensible) explanation was given why they want new elections, given that their outcome is not expected to be radically different.

So my gut feeling is that while stalemate is still the likeliest outcome, the probability is lower than at any point in the past year and a half. I have touched on this before, but the local elections are really where actual power, as applied in people's daily lives, is distributed. And, since the local elections are run by the central government, the parties would really prefer to not hand over the reigns to President Radev, who may put a spoke in their collective political machines' wheels.

For that reason, my guesstimate, assuming that PP and DB indeed run jointly, that neither BV, Levitsata, nor ITN make it into parliament, and that Radev does not endorse any party is:

40% - Deadlock. Forever. Or at least until after the 3-in-1 election, when even DB people are claiming that they will vote for whatever Frankensteinian monstrosity is assembled in parliament, just to stop the endless cycle of elections.

35% - An expert government is formed with the support of the 'paper ballot'/status-quo coalition, with the main goal to guarantee and distribute the EU recovery funding, but mostly to ensure that the local election goes smoothly for GERB/DPS.

20% - GERB and DPS actually manage to get a majority of their own without the need for BSP. This became much likelier after recent events.

5% - all other outlandish scenarios, including one of the least likeliest, but the one PP/DB are pinning their hopes on: that their joint list (which is also likely to include the ITN renegades, the one BSP MP who got kicked out over his support for Ukraine, the former MV!/NI part from IS!MV! and an assortment of other ne'er-do-wells) somehow gathers enough support that it can pass a (minority?) government of its own. This is similar to - and about as realistic -as Vazrazhdane's stated plan to gather a constitutional majority alone.

[Beagle]

Today is the final day for registering for the election, so a brief update:

GERB-SDS are somewhat scrambling after the finance minister for the longer part of both the Borisov II and III governments was sanctioned by the US under the Magnitsky act. The responses range from 'new phone, who dis we scarcely know him and, in any case, he resigned from government under a cloud, so clearly we are serious about tackling corruption' by Borisov's inner circle to 'the Americans do not present any proof, his guilt is not proven in a court of law and this is an affront to our sovereignty' by former GERB ministers that were strongly rumored to be the DPS* quota in the later Borisov governments.

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*DPS here is shorthand for the oligarchic circles that are personified in the previously mentioned DPS-parliamentarian Delyan Peevski, but are above and beyond partisanship. Bulgarians typically refer to them as "the Mafia" [registered trademark]

PP-DB are indeed running jointly. Early surveys show them neck-and-neck with GERB for 1st place, but, of course, even if they do come in first, the options for teaming-up with any other party in the next parliament are exceedingly tiny and the prospects of a majority - non-existent.

DPS and Vazrazhdane are firmly in 3rd and 4th place, respectively, and if the elections were held today, stand to gain a few seats.

BSP are in their usual state of disarray. The last round of expulsions/voluntary resignations from the party included: an MEP, 5 former ministers, a current minister in the caretaker government, half of their remaining major town mayors (ok, 1 of the 2), the entire youth movement (which is somewhat of a BSP habit, who have expelled their youth movements en masse 3 or 4 times over the course of the past 25 years), many former MPs etc. Many of the departees will run with Levitsata [see the previous post], who may now actually stand a chance of gaining entry into parliament, although the surveys were not in the field when the actual coalition building took place. In a nutshell, the BSP/Levitsata battle is a race between the 'Communist' brand - Ninova's party - and the content - Levitsata. So far in BSP's history, at least, the brand has always won.

So what do you think is Ninova's recipe for reviving the party's flagging fortunes? Check your answer in the spoiler!

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

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Give yourself a pat on the back if you guessed: "Endorse Vazrazhdane's anti-Euro referendum and propose a referendum of your own, banning the teaching of 'gender [LGBT] ideology' in schools"

BV surprised many, myself included, by teaming up at the last minute with VMRO. I was going to expound on that, but in reality, this development doesn't merit much discussion - the 3 or 4 people who will be interested in this information already understand its significance and the rest don't - and shouldn't - care. At most it can be noted that this substantially increases the chances BV-VMRO (re-)enter parliament.