Bulgaria - Parliamentary Elections - June 2024
The centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party won the most votes in Bulgaria’s 09 June 2024 snap election, but it would need at least two coalition partners to form a government. With 64 percent of votes counted, GERB enjoyed a strong lead, having won 23.65 percent of the vote. That illustrated that the results of Bulgaria’s sixth election in three years were unlikely to put an end to the political instability that has plagued the country in recent years. The Movement for Rights and Freedom (MRF), mainly representing Bulgaria’s large ethnic Turkish minority, with 15.89 percent of the votes and pro-Western bloc We Continue the Change (PP), with 15.08 percent, were neck-and-neck for second place. The ultranationalist Revival party stood on 14.33 percent.
That left GERB to try to put together a government that can implement much-needed reforms to anchor the country more deeply in the European Union. The vote was triggered by the collapse in March of a coalition comprising GERB and the PP that lasted just nine months amid arguments over judiciary reforms among others. “No one achieves success without acknowledging the help of others. We are confident and acknowledge this help with gratitude. Thank you, GERB! Thank you to all of you who supported us!” Borissov wrote on his Facebook page after exit polls came out.
Most observers expect a coalition between GERB and DPS. According to pollster Georgi Ganev of the Trend agency, however, other constellations are also possible. "Even if GERB and DPS do get a majority in parliament, it will be a small one, and it is unlikely that the two parties will decide to rule with such slim support unless they are joined by one or two other parties," he said. "At the same time, PP-DB voters are unlikely to be very happy about a repeat of the previous government."
Boyko Borissov, leader of the centre-right GERB party, led the country for more than a decade before losing power in 2021 amid massive anticorruption protests. That has left the country beset by political instability, with fragile coalition governments consistently failing. Previous governments have been unable “to keep a coalition together, let alone address issues such as the economic and demographic crisis”, points out Al Jazeera’s Um-e-Kulsoom Sharif. That has seen mistrust and fatigue grow. The turnout for the election was the lowest since the end of communism, with only 30 percent of people voting. “We are weary of elections, and we want some stability and some prosperity for the country,” Margarita Semerdzhieva, a 72-year-old pensioner, told the AFP news agency outside a polling station in the capital Sofia.
The agreement reached following the previous election (in April 2023) between the two biggest parties represented in parliament, GERB and We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB), envisaged the appointment of two rotating governments for a total period of around 18 months. The cabinet led by Nikolai Denkov (PP-DB) resigned on 06 March 2024, after exactly nine months in office, hoping for a quick appointment of another government in line with the agreement.
On 9 April, Bulgaria’s caretaker government was sworn in with Dimitar Glavchev as its head. President Rumen Radev dissolved the National Assembly and called an early parliamentary election, which will be held on 9 June alongside the election to the European Parliament. The failure of the fragile rotating government and the decision to call a sixth consecutive election (the fifth ahead of schedule) since 2021 are proof of the aggravation of Bulgaria’s protracted political crisis.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had traveled to Bulgaria to provide campaign support to Bulgaria's GERB party, a member of the transnational European People's Party (EPP) group to which von der Leyen herself belongs. She was visiting a country that is unique in the EU in many ways. For one thing, Bulgarians were not only voting in the EU elections; they were also electing a new parliament, their sixth in only three years.
But that's not the only thing that set Bulgaria apart: Rumen Radev, president of the NATO and EU country, often makes pro-Russia statements on the war in Ukraine and claims, among other things, that Russia cannot be defeated. What's more, the country's next government could include politicians that are seen in the West as corrupt, among them several who have been sanctioned in accordance with the US Magnitsky Act, which allows Washington to sanction foreign individuals for human rights and corruption violations.
Many Bulgarian election observers and critics see Borisov as a symbol of the intertwinement of politics and organized crime. Discussions about the upcoming elections in Bulgaria have been dominated by Borisov and the former media magnate and oligarch Delyan Peevski, who has been sanctioned by the US.
Borisov and his GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) party are expected to get 24–25% of the vote in Sunday's EU and parliamentary elections. The liberal-conservative alliance known as We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) is expected to poll at 15–16%, with the party of Bulgaria's Muslims, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), coming in third. Peevski was recently elected co-chair of DPS, even though he himself is not a Muslim.
Borisov's GERB party spent 10 months in power over the past year, with the liberal-conservative PP-DB alliance. Their coalition government was based on Euro-Atlantic values and unconditional support for Ukraine in the fight against the Russian aggressor. After the collapse of the coalition in April, it's thought unlikely — although not impossible — that the two parties will form a government again.
The populists of the Vazrazhdane party (Revival) are also set to be elected to Bulgaria's parliament. Vazrazhdane is a pro-Russian, anti-European party whose leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, has announced he would like to form a new group in the European Parliament with Germany's far-right populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) after the EU elections. Kostadinov has said the EU is "harmful." Several Bulgarian experts believe future members of the European Parliament from Vazrazhdane will try to sabotage the work of the entire European Union. They also said President Radev secretly backs the party because he holds similar pro-Russian views.
Ivelin Mihailov and Nikolay Markov lead the far-right Greatness party, which gained some 5 percent of the vote in Bulgaria's June 9 parliamentary elections. Ivelin Mihailov was accused of running a Ponzi scheme in Bulgaria, allegedly using the ill-gotten gains to build a historical theme park that authorities suspect was also being used by an armed far-right militia. Despite his controversial past and shady business practices in Bulgaria, albeit no stranger to corruption, Ivelin Mihailov is now about to enter the political arena with his pro-Russian, far-right party. The Greatness party gained some 5 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, in Bulgaria's June 9 parliamentary elections. "This is the surprise of the elections," political analyst Ognyan Minchev told Bulgarian National TV after pre-election polls had not given the party much of a chance.
Besides the murky Mihailov, the other founder of Greatness is Nikolay Markov, a former lieutenant colonel in Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security between 1993 and 2007. Markov often appears in the Bulgarian media as a national-security expert. The party can generally be described as populist, Euroskeptic, and pro-Russian.
After the elections, Bulgaria must deal with a whole string of important issues, including high energy and electricity prices, support for Ukraine and for Ukrainian refugees in Bulgaria, joining the euro currency zone and, above all, the as-yet unfinished reform of the judiciary and the country's intelligence services. It was these reforms that caused the collapse of the outgoing government.
Political analyst Daniel Smilov believes Bulgaria can advance and make progress. He points to the major successes of the outgoing government, saying: "Despite everything, Bulgaria has acted responsibly and reasonably with regard to Ukraine and the country's dependence on Russian gas, made significant strides toward Schengen [Europe's zone of unrestricted movement — Editor's note] and is on the verge of joining the eurozone. Incomes in the country are rising and the country is racing to catch up with Central Europe."
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