🇧🇬 Bulgarian elections megathread (next up: European and National (?) Parliament 09 June 2024) (user search)
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Author Topic: 🇧🇬 Bulgarian elections megathread (next up: European and National (?) Parliament 09 June 2024)  (Read 27107 times)
GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Bulgaria


« on: April 04, 2021, 10:02:24 AM »

Great work, Beagle. I haven't been very involved in Bulgarian politics (due to wanting to avoid depression), so thank you for making this thread.

There isn't really much for me to add, but still some comments:

Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic – it bears repeating, since the outgoing parliament has been by far the weakest wielder of legislative power since Communist times. Borisov last made an appearance in the parliament hall back in October 2019 and has refused to answer any opposition queries since then, and it's not like there has been that much opposition. When you also take into account Covid restrictions, the fact that 3 out of the 4 expected top parties' leaders refuse to debate or give interviews, as well as the poor weather outlook, this will without a doubt be the lowest turnout parliamentary election since 1990. The general assumption is that low turnout favors the established parties, while ITN and IS! MV! would be hurt.
You're right about the current parliament, but in practice, parliament has never really held any power compared to the prime minister. Though at least earlier parliaments contained independent thinkers, but all parties have gained enough experience at this point to keep them out.

Quote
GERB (leader: Boyko Borisov, 2017 – 32.6%)
Expected range – 26-32%
Trend: slightly upward, mostly because of 'better the devil you know' low propensity voters
Also with the depressed turnout, the GERB turn-out machine will be much more effective.

Quote
BSP (leader: Kornelia Ninova, 2017 – 27.2%)
Expected range – 18-24%
Trend: sharply downward, although it must be said that the two 'red' pollsters are both owned by people who are very much opposed to Ninova and may not be overestimating the BSP support like in the past
Also, BSP is bleeding support to ITN (protest voters) and IS!MV! (people who like Manolova).

Quote
ITN [Ima takav narod, “There are such people”] (leader: Slavi Trifonov, 2017 – N/A)
Expected range – 14-18%
Trend: upward, mostly from 'a pox on both their houses' voters
[for more on Trifonov, see the 2016 presidential and the 2017 parliament election threads]
Judging on my comment there, I seem to have underestimated him...

Quote
DPS (leader: Mustafa Karadayi, 2017 – 9%)
Expected range – 12-20%
Trend: stagnant. I mean, there are literally tens of thousands who are voting for DPS tomorrow but won't know it until the money exchanges hands, but the DPS voters are generally not swayable by political campaigning
Good to put a high upper bound, because they're always underestimated by pollsters. Also, they've made up with Erdogan, so they can expect their usual larger vote numbers from Turkey.

Quote
There are no less than 7 additional parties about whose entry in parliament I can create a plausible narrative, but as the reputable polling suggests they will stay below the 4% threshold, I will cover them only in case the exit polls tomorrow show they have a reasonable chance of making it. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out how it is common across the world for politicians to make a big show of signing a contract/covenant with the country, but what happens if they break that contract? Well, Vesselin Mareshki, leader of the Volya party (who are running an opportunistic coalition with another party currently in parliament – NFSB), has a contract with Bulgaria available at his gas stations and pharmacies.  If you sign it, and Volya-NFSB come first or second in your district, and within 2 years you don't have a state- or privately owned gas station within 30 kms of your home where you can buy gasoline at least 7.5 eurocents cheaper than the average for the area, Mareshki, who is a multimillionaire, will personally pay you 5000 BGN (approximately €2.5k). And when will ur flop parties, huh?
I think it's 10% in a municipality, which isn't quite as unlikely, especially since they're in a coalition with NFSB which has some regional strength around Burgas.

Quote
Government formation is going to be a nightmare, as there are no two parties who appear likely to be able to have a majority on their own– not even the suicide pact that would be a GERB-BSP 'grand' coalition. The only three parties that have expressed willingness to work together are the three extra-parliamentary parties, who even in a best case scenario for them will not come close to 120 seats. Right now everybody is playing a waiting game to see which parties actually make it – a 5-party parliament is going to be a different universe from a 7-party one. Most of the tea leaves readers seem to agree that unless a clear coalition is available – which appears extremely unlikely today – there will be a 'technocratic' government to last until the Presidential election in November, in which an 'axis of evil' of GERB, DPS and parts of BSP will attempt to knock off the incumbent Radev. It is considered anathema for GERB to yield power to a caretaker government appointed by Radev, so they might be willing to support even a rather unfavorable government until – they hope – another president is inaugurated in January. The problem is that Borisov – who clearly wants the position – is presumably smart enough to realize that unless something radically changes until the autumn, he'd lose and he'd lose ugly.
Or more likely a coalition will be a formed between GERB and a few other parties - starting with ITN who will break their promises about not allying with GERB. None of these parties are interested in a second election so soon (due to their more limited financial resources) and as you  correctly point out, GERB does not want to run under an interim government appointed by Radev (the fact that a large part of BSP also wants to knock out Radev is a good indication of why that party is going nowhere).

Quote
In any event in a few days Slavi Trifonov will, in all likelihood, be kingmaker. I am, unfortunately, the worst person to ask about what he is going to do, since the last time I watched his show was 2004, I was home alone sick from school and the cat was sleeping on me so I couldn't get up to get the remote. I hated every minute of it and I've never watched him again. Since all candidates of his party are strictly prohibited from giving interviews or making TV appearances on channels other than the party's own and since they are by and large political unknowns, ITN is a riddle wrapped in an enigma... but I'm pretty sure there is organized crime in the kernel.
Unfortunately, I see far too much in common between Borisov and Trifonov - starting with playing to the lowest common denominator in society...


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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2021, 10:08:32 AM »

Who the f**k is holding an election on an Easter Sunday ?
Bulgaria is Orthodox, we don't celebrate Easter on the same day as Catholics

Interesting.

I thought that's only for Christmas.
This is actually on the same day in Bulgaria (and a few other countries).
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2021, 10:31:52 AM »

Turnout very low.

Maybe only 45% (down from 54% in 2017).

Bulgaria's population is shrinking fast, so that's a reason and maybe COVID.
Not that low really. By 5pm it was about 40%, compared to about 43% in 2017.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2021, 10:39:57 AM »

In other news, as in every Bulgarian elections, there have been election day only rankings, with every element in the ranking a transparent stand-by for a political party. The latest, shown here, at least shows some originality by using weather forecasts:

GERB - 24.2%
BSP - 16%
ITN - 15%
DPS - 9.5%
DB - 9%
IS!MV! - 5%
VMRO - 4.5%

These results have been so alarming that BSP have held a press conference to denounce the "false polls", but this is not going to be of much use, what with these violations never being addressed.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2021, 10:49:21 AM »

Turnout very low.

Maybe only 45% (down from 54% in 2017).

Bulgaria's population is shrinking fast, so that's a reason and maybe COVID.
Not that low really. By 5pm it was about 40%, compared to about 43% in 2017.

I only had the 12:00 numbers available.

It still only has those numbers, no 17:00 numbers:

https://results.cik.bg/pi2021/aktivnost/

Also, why does it say 6.5 million registered voters - when Austrian/German newspapers say 6.7 million registered voters ?

Are there 200.000 Bulgarians registered to vote abroad ?
There has been an update by the Central Election Commision.

As for the total number of registered voters, there are indeed about 6.5 million of them (on paper, in reality there a lot fewer voters actually living in the country). I have no idea where the 6.7 million figure comes from. There is certainly no registration of voters living outside the country.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Bulgaria


« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2021, 11:08:51 AM »

How did Bansko ski resort vote in 2017 ?
GERB - 48.8%, BSP - 23.6%, Volya - 11.5%, NFSB - 7.1%.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #6 on: April 04, 2021, 12:12:15 PM »

Will get to responding to people, but first the initial 'pre-final' exit polls - there's at least 5 agencies polling, I haven't seen all yet:

GERB - 24.5-26%
BSP - 16-19%
ITN - 15-18.5% (who may be ahead of BSP)
DPS - 10-11%
DB - 9.5-10.5% (who may be ahead of DPS)
IS!MV! - 4.5-5.5%
VMRO - 4-4.5% (who may be out after the votes from abroad come in)

Loads of things to comment on, this is a stream of thoughts, not any narrative:
- turnout was pretty decent, I will expand on this when answering to Tender, but it's either that covid and weather didn't scare the voters or that the pent-up anger at the two main parties was enough for people to overcome their fears
Keep in mind the 300k less voters registered, compared to the last time. But it's true that the effect of Covid was not as significant as expected.

Quote
- 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
- anti-corruption parties did great
Of course this part also played a role. And does ITN count as anti-corruption?
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #7 on: April 04, 2021, 01:58:32 PM »
« Edited: April 04, 2021, 02:04:10 PM by GMantis »

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.

Alright, this will go unheeded - and I've certainly been guilty of this myself - but in the international elections forum it's all too common to enter a thread for a minor country's election with a mentality that does not move too far from 'Go team Right!' or 'Go team Left!' (the latter being much more common here). In Bulgaria this is not particularly useful.

Attempts such as the above to place the parties on the left-right/liberal-conservative axis are well-intentioned, but quite simply put, virtually all parties today are deeply personalist, they stand for whatever the party leader has claimed today - even though it may be the complete opposite of what the leader said yesterday, the party manifesto or even what their European family is officially endorsing (the ill-fated Istanbul Convention being a prime example.

I may not have paid too much attention to BSP's campaigning on the medical crisis, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark when I say their campaign was "Yeah, we'll do what GERB did, but also we'll import Sputnik V vaccines from Russia", which... yeah, I don't think it's very social democratic.
I quite agree with the rest of your argument (though I would add that political positions don't play much role in voting behavior, what with BSP doing much worse than would be expected from their positions), but I don't really see how importing a vaccine from Russia is against social democracy.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2021, 02:06:28 PM »

Question:

What were the 2017 results of the 2 following cities ?

Svištov (a city of 34.000, that had 48.000 people in 2001 and declines by 2.5% each year)

Nesebǎr (a city on the Black Sea that has grown from 19.000 to 29.000 in the past 2 decades)

?

(Are there 2021 results already ?)
I'm currently in the process of calculating the 2017 results by municipality. The 2021 results won't     be available for a few days at least.   
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2021, 03:23:49 PM »

Question:

What were the 2017 results of the 2 following cities ?

Svištov (a city of 34.000, that had 48.000 people in 2001 and declines by 2.5% each year)

Nesebǎr (a city on the Black Sea that has grown from 19.000 to 29.000 in the past 2 decades)

For Svishtov:
BSP - 33.6%, GERB - 25.1%, NFSB - 10.6%, Reformer's Block - 9.1%, DPS - 7.6%, Volya - 4.1%

For Nesebar:
GERB - 33.5%, BSP - 31%, NFSB - 12.1%, Volya - 7.7%, Reformer's Block - 3.1%, DPS - 2.2%
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #10 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.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Bulgaria


« Reply #11 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.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #12 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.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
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Bulgaria


« Reply #13 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.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #14 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%).
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #15 on: April 27, 2021, 06:49:22 AM »
« Edited: April 27, 2021, 06:52:29 AM by GMantis »

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.


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

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


« Reply #16 on: April 30, 2021, 10:13:13 AM »

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


« Reply #17 on: May 01, 2021, 06:04:56 PM »

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

I think DB made it (informally) clear to Radev that they wouldn't propose a government either - Wednesday's stunt where GERB, BSP and DPS in concert blocked the parliament sitting really proved that a government that has to rely on the status quo to break the status quo is doomed from the start. And the legal loophole I had mentioned earlier is now closed, as parliament severely hamstrung GERB's outgoing government (of course, too late to block a lot of appointments and public procurements), but also any other government acting after its resignation.
I think that this is a somewhat over-dramatic conclusion. As has been pointed out, all three had their own objectives to pursue, but BSP is not opposed to the election reforms which seem to be the main objective of the new opposition in the government. Certainly cynical, but it doesn't mean that the three parties are allies. More importantly, I don't see much hope of ITN being able to form a government without the support of BSP. Latest polling data certainly points this way. And this is before taking into account the underestimation of GERB and DPS, as well as the nationalist allies of GERB forming a coalition to enter parliament. In fact, it's far from unlikely that GERB is able to form a new government after the next election.

Quote
The question mark is now whether BSP returns the mandate immediately (in which case the election will be on July 11) or wait until after St. George's day (July 18).
No, if they return it immediately (ie on May 5) the election will have to be held on July 4 - the last Sunday before the two month deadline after parliament is dissolved.

If it is July 11th then the Balkans will have a busy day: Moldova is having early elections too...
Probably the best thing about the new elections is that the BSP will likely collapse even further: about time for that Russophile party of ex-communists to go away
The collapse of the BSP in this election had much to do with the Covid pandemic and it's likely that by the summer the current wave will have abated.

As for the collapse of BSP being a good thing - even discounting my obvious bias, I don't see how the continuance  of GERB rule, the likely effect of a BSP collapse, could be any better than BSP's Russophilia which is substantially exaggerated (especially when they're actually in government). Furthermore, a BSP collapse doesn't mean that those with left-wing views and pro-Russian positions will go anywhere and they're a very significant proportion of the population (most surveys that BSP's economic policy is closest to the average view of the voters and the majority of the people have favorable views of Russia) and if there is no mainstream party to represent them, they're going to shift to a fringe party. Like last time, when this was the ultra-nationalist Ataka, which would have likely failed to enter parliament in 2005 or 2014 if it wasn't for the perceived abandonment by BSP of its left-wing economic policies and Russophilia respectively.
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GMantis
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« Reply #18 on: May 02, 2021, 05:25:55 AM »

I have no sympathy for socialism, GMantis, however, if you say that the positions of the BSP are the closest to the majority of the population, then is it not strange that they only got 15%, and have allowed the GERB to dominate since 2009? If they are truly the party closest to the population, then either their brand is bad, they are shockingly incompetent, or both. I believe it would be in the best interest of everyone, including left-wingers, if this party which managed to fail on so many occasions, to go away and be replaced by a modern social democratic party. Not that I think this will happen anytime soon, this is merely hypothetical.
As was pointed out earlier, the majority of the people don't follow politics at all and even among those who do, not many actually take party positions into account. For many, BSP's actions in previous government makes it impossible for them to vote for BSP again. A large number of voters, regardless of their positions on the issues, will never vote for them because they used to be Communists/caused Videnov's winter/invited DPS into power/appointed Peevski and so on. And because voters are so badly informed, perception is more important than reality. I doubt that many of the people voting for ITN know that this party supports neo-liberal policies that go even further of those that have been in place since 1997, and yet they're considered a populist party. And in connection with this, youare right that the BSP brand is bad. One part is that they're not actually very socialists (they passed a flat tax while they were in power between 2005 and 2009). The other is that BSP  seems to show little interest in promoting any of the classical left-wing issues that are important to voters.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #19 on: July 08, 2022, 12:57:04 PM »

I see GMantis has been around, hopefully he can upload something more presentable (and maybe even do a municipalities map).
Sorry, I've been rather busy these last few months. I'll definitely try to post maps on the recent elections, at the very latest before the next elections (if there are such this year).
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #20 on: October 02, 2022, 11:31:15 AM »
« Edited: October 02, 2022, 11:43:37 AM by GMantis »

Unfortunately I didn't manage to keep my promise about the maps, only finishing the election maps of last year's parliamentary election after the current election started. You can see them here.


Ok, so this is tomorrow, I will be manning a polling station again (a different one this time, this one is probably in the top10 DB precincts overall in the country, so I don't expect many issues).

I realize international interest is middling. Of all the 'B' elections on 2 October, the Bulgarian one is by far the least consequential. Even in a 'black swan' event, the consensus on the issues that matter most to foreign observers is so broad that there is absolutely zero chance for a pivot. And, in any event, everybody expects a round 5 some time in the spring, or at the latest at the same time as the scheduled local elections an year from now.

The most realistic chance to avoid round 5 - the prospect of an 'Euro-Atlantic' coalition of GERB-PP-DPS-DB - was torpedoed a few days ago, when the PP co-leader gave the game away, saying something along the lines of 'Foreign [read American] emissaries offered us GERB and/or DPS cooperation to prevent new elections if we were willing to compromise on our corruption fight'. To sum it up, PP are adamant that there will not be any partnership with GERB or DPS under any circumstances and will actively seek new elections rather than accept any alternative to the PP-BSP-DB arrangement. So, given that Vazrazhdane are certain to at least double their seats, there is no chance for any stable configuration among natural allies, especially if ITN are also a part of parliament.

There is little point in discussing the campaign, I will just record the perceived movement over the past month or so.

GERB - upward trend; their dominance at the local level is really paying off, as their turnout machines are much more important when the participation levels are falling off a cliff.

PP - downward; PP, at least to some degree, have positioned themselves as the party which stands for putting Boyko Borisov in prison, but not much else.

DPS - upward; and the pollsters aren't recognizing the increased number of polling stations in Turkey, I think they may be well positioned to get more than 40 MPs.

Vazrazhdane - upward; I personally think it is likelier that the pollsters were undercounting their vote earlier and now it has moved to a more realistic 12-14% range; there are quite a few pundits that claim that V will be the major surprise of the election and could even become the 2nd largest party.

BSP - downward; much to noone's surprise, Ninova's attempts to straddle a number of issues, most importantly Ukraine, are not winning any of the sides over;

DB - slightly upward; almost entirely from PP loanee voters coming back to the roost;

ITN - upward; to the extent that if only one of ITN/BV makes it in, I'd wager it'd be ITN. Radev's tacit support is paying off for them, but also they are tapping into the general discontent with the Bulgarian elites, so maybe people are voting for them precisely because they don't want a stable government.

BV - downward. I certainly hope it will be enough to keep them out of parliament, especially given that their diaspora vote will be minuscule. We'll see soon enough, I guess.

My guess for tomorrow:
GERB -27%
PP - 15%
DPS - 15%
Vazrazdhane - 14%
BSP - 8%
DB - 7%
ITN - 4% (above the threshold)
BV - 3%
Others - 7% combined

If anybody has any questions before the event, I'd be happy to answer tonight.
Excellent analysis as always. I don't really have anything to add, except that I'm not entirely convinced that a GERB-PP coalition could not yet be formed, since in the last twenty years no has ever lost any bet by overestimating the influence of the "foreign emissaries"...

3 weeks to go, but you wouldn't know it, given the complete lack of posters (a significant break with Bulgarian electoral tradition), of significant debate or of (credible) polling.
Most parties seemed to have moved their entire campaign online, which from the environmental point of view is a great development even if it gets annoying after a while to wait until you can skip over the incessant election adds.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #21 on: October 02, 2022, 12:08:11 PM »

First exit poll results (expected number of MPs in brackets):

GERB: 25.5% (67)
PP: 18.4% (48)
DPS: 12.6% (33)
BSP: 11.2% (30)
Revival: 10.4% (27)
DB: 9% (24)
ITN: 4.2% (11)
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #22 on: October 02, 2022, 01:42:00 PM »

A complete parallel count of the votes has been released:

GERB: 23.5% (64)
PP: 19.5% (52)
DPS: 15.2% (41)
Revival: 10% (27)
BSP: 8.9% (24)
DB: 7% (19)
BV: 4.7% (13)

ITN barely misses the threshold at 3.8%.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #23 on: October 02, 2022, 04:33:32 PM »

DPS are yet to record almost any votes from Turkey, so-o... they are definitely in 3rd, above 40 seats in parliament... and I can see a purely theoretical scenario in which they and GERB could be able to vote in a government with a strategic abstention by any of the other parties. I'd say a coalition GERB-DPS-BV coalition could be conceivable, but realistically an increase in the DPS vote from abroad would very likely push BV out;
I don't see at all how this could be viable. There are more unlikely coalitions possible, but this one is not far behind. It seems as plausible as the suggested GERB-DPS minority government: that is, not at all.
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GMantis
Dessie Potter
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,945
Bulgaria


« Reply #24 on: October 03, 2022, 04:54:51 PM »

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.
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