A low priority vote, but one that's on the EU watch. Bulgaria's going to the polls on Sunday, April 4, and there's a lot of disquiet in the country. Bulgaria's been fairly quiet the last few years except for last year, where they had their own localised version of the Summer of Discontent. This was mostly due to the current PM, Boyko Borisov, being allgedly quite corrupt and increasingly paranoid. Press freedom has dropped considerably in the last four years, Borisov's at open war with the country's president, Rumen Radev, and the protests were triggered after Borisov had the Chief Prosecutor's office raid the Radev administration alleging a cover-up. Another major issue that led to the protests was the "Eight Dwarfs" scandal that saw top magistrates coercing business executives to sell shares or gold bars to them, even going so far as to threaten one executive with denying his son kidney dialysis if he refused(this sounds like a novel, but it isn't).
Ultimately, the nation rose up demanding the end of the GERB(Borisov's party) government, the resignations of other senior officials including the GERB Mayor of Sofia, the Chief Prosecutor, and the Director-General of BNT(Bulgaria's state TV network), early elections and amendments to the constitution. Only the amendments were ever called, and the Grand National Assembly session required to vote on them never came to pass. So now Bulgaria's going to the polls under these circumstance, and Borisov's party is nonetheless still leading in the polls, albeit by a reduced margin than in '17. In the meantime, many of his biggest opponents have formed parties of their own including(in an odd repeat of recent history) TV star and popular folk musician Slavi Trifonov with his anti-corruption There is Such a People Party, and the federal ombudswoman Maya Manolova launching Stand Up.BG.
After the April election, there was no workable governing coalition on Bulgaria. Not that they didn't try...even though they mostly didn't. GERB's candidate, Daniel Mitov, a protege of Borisov, couldn't get a majority. Radev then offered a technocratic government supported by ITN and lead by Antoaneta Stefanova, a chess grandmaster. She refused. Finally the BSP got a crack. They refused to even try saying nobody wanted to work with them.so on May 1, the President called for a second election for Sunday, June 11.
UPDATE(9/14): It appears that Trifonov was not able to form a government, so Bulgaria goes to the polls for the thrid time on Sunday, November 14, the same day as the first round of the Presidential election.
So let's get to it. There are 240 seats in the National Assembly in 31 multi-member districts using closed list PR with a 4% threshold. Now let's meet the parties:
GERB(Coat of Arms) led by Current PM Boyko Borisov: Centre-right to Right, Conservative, Populist, Pro-Europe
Bulgarian Socialist Party(BSP) led by Korneliya Ninova: Centre-left to Left, Pro-Europe, Pro-Russia, Democratic Socialist, Left Populist, Left Nationalist, Social Conservative
There Is Such a People(ITN) led by Slavi Trifonov: Big Tent, Pro-Europe, Anti-Corruption, Populist, Direct Democratic
Movement for Rights and Freedoms(DPS) led by Mustafa Karadayi: Centre, Turkish Interests, Social Liberal
Democratic Bulgaria(DB) an alliance of three parties including the Bulgarian Greens led by Hristo Ivanov and Atanas Atanasov: Centre to Centre-right, Liberal, Liberal Conservative, Green Policy, Pro-Europe, Anti-Corruption
Stand up! Mafia, Get Out!(ISMV) led by Maya Monolova: Big Tent, Populist, Anti-corruption
United Patriots(OP) a coalition of two parties led by Krasimir Karakachenov and Valeri Simeonov: Far Right, Bulgarian Orthodox, Soft Eurosceptic, Right Populist, National Conservative, Nationalist
So, what's your choice, NSG? For me, it would be DB. Trifonov's doing his best, and I can't fault him for putting the effort in, but after seeing what happened in Ukraine, I'm a little shy of a repeat performance in Sofia.
. By the way, is there a thread for cross-EU elections? Not just EU elections, but also elections of other countries inside the EU. It seems like it could give a voice to the smaller nations with interesting political realms like Bulgaria and Greece.
