European Union and NATO member Bulgaria heads into its seventh parliamentary election in three-and-a-half years in what is seen by many observers as a response to deep and severe political problems.
The election on Sunday, October 27th, could record the lowest-ever turnout since the fall of communism in 1989. The previous turnout at the elections this June had already dipped to a new historic low of 33.4%. In contrast, the elections held in April 2021 had a turnout of 49.1%.
There seems to be a growing distrust in politicians as they fail to set up stable coalition governments and keep relying on new elections, resulting in “revolving-door governments” replacing each other.
Bulgarian conservative journalist and lawyer Viktor Kostov told The European Conservative
This is how democracy works: when you don’t have the majority to run the country, then we go into another election. I myself don’t see any level of instability, repeated elections haven’t led to a breakdown of society. But many people are getting tired, and wish to have some form of direction.
The change in the political landscape, and the decline of the traditional parties, was in part caused by the 2020-21 anti-corruption and anti-establishment protests, and in part by the COVID pandemic, opening the way for the rise of new parties.
According to opinion polls, the pro-European centre-right GERB party, which under the leadership of Boyko Borissov was the dominant force for most of the 2010s, is set to take first place on Sunday with 27% of the votes.
The runner-up spot will be contested by two parties.
One is We Continue the Change—Democratic Bulgaria (PP–DB), a liberal pro-EU alliance, which emerged following the anti-graft protests. It is polling at 15%. The other is the patriotic, eurosceptic, anti-vaccine Revival party, which has continuously grown in support amid the disenchantment with other parties. It has the support of 14% of the electorate.
Other parties that are set to enter parliament with single-digit results are the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the nationalist There Is Such a People party (ITN), and two parties that attract most of their votes from the ethnic Turkish community.
The polls do not point to anyone securing a majority, meaning disagreeing parties will either have to come to some sort of agreement or face another round of elections within a few months.
As the Bulgarian daily Dnevnik puts it:
The distribution of seats in parliament will not be much different from the current one. Everyone says that there has to be a regular government, but the red lines that have been drawn minimise the chances of this happening.
Addressing a rally a few days ago, Borissov said that while he respects Revival, the party’s pro-Russian positions “won’t sit well with our Euro-Atlantic partners.”
However, Viktor Kostov doesn’t rule out the possibility of GERB trying to work together with Revival, and possibly the ITN party, to set up a right-wing government.
One thing that the current parliament has been able to achieve is the passing of a law that bans LGBT propaganda in schools. The amendment to the education law was passed by a large majority, receiving strong cross-party backing, with only the Europhile PP–DB rejecting it.
“Even those who consider themselves to be European-affiliated, like GERB, had no problem voting for that law. Bulgaria is socially conservative,” Viktor Kostov emphasised.
Bulgaria does not recognise same-sex marriage and also refuses to ratify the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women, because it promotes gender ideology.
According to Kostov,
even the former communists, the Socialist Party seems to be more conservative than the PP–DB alliance, which is supposed to represent the anti-communist democratic development of the country, but is too subservient to Western interests, and represents a neo-liberal, neo-Marxist agenda that is favoured by the globalist elites.
But the main concern for Bulgarians is the constant inflation, the lack of jobs, and a lack of economic stability for families, according to Viktor Kostov. He also emphasises that Bulgarians do not want to be dragged into the Ukrainian war to fight for a cause they are not interested in.
Like many other smaller Central European countries, Bulgaria, too, has to constantly perform a sensitive balancing act, gravitating towards one or another geopolitical power, Kostov said, but he believes the government should find its own voice, and not be too dependent on either the EU or Russia.