Bulgaria held its latest parliamentary election on 27 October – the seventh parliamentary election it has held since 2021. Emilia Zankina, Yuxiang Lin and Tim Haughton write that despite Bulgarian parties promising to end the political stalemate, there is little chance of the vote producing a stable government.
Some elections are change elections, but others only reinforce the status quo. On 27 October, for the seventh time since 2021, Bulgarian voters went to the polls for parliamentary elections. Rather than resolving the country’s prolonged political crisis, however, the results suggest there is little chance of forming a stable and durable government.
Although much media coverage in the past couple of weeks has focused on the recent elections in Georgia and Moldova, Bulgaria’s political imbroglio highlights key lessons about electoral dynamics in Europe. These relate not only to the impact of Russia but also to the salience of anti-corruption appeals, personality clashes and the difficulties of forming governing coalitions.
Fragmentation, fluidity and polarisation
Ahead of the election, Bulgaria’s parties promised to end the political stalemate, promote economic recovery and tackle corruption. They also took notably different stances toward the war in Ukraine. These are all issues that the public view as important. Despite this, parties failed to mobilise voters, with the turnout rate for the election falling just under 39%. Although slightly higher than the last election in June (34.4%), this underscores the deep disillusionment and increased apathy that now exists among Bulgarian citizens.
The largest share of the vote, as in all but two of the last eleven elections in Bulgaria, was won by GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) led by Boyko Borissov, the three-time prime minister. In partnership with the Union of Democratic Forces, GERB won 26.4% of the vote, almost twice as much as any other party. GERB’s recipe for success lay in a combination of promises to deliver security and stability, a narrative focused on new infrastructure projects, Borissov’s charisma and the party’s active network of party branches across the country.
But there are limits to GERB’s appeal. Corruption allegations against Borissov’s party have placed a ceiling on GERB’s level of support. They have also fuelled the emergence of new parties running on anti-corruption platforms, much like in other countries across Central and Eastern Europe. There has been a flurry of new parties in Bulgaria including There is Such a People, Continuing the Change (PP) and Moral, Unity, and Honour (MECh), crowding the political scene and complicating the task of forming a government.
In 2023, it looked as if Bulgaria might have found a solution, but a deal between GERB and PP (in partnership with Democratic Bulgaria as PP-DB) descended into acrimony over the agreed upon rotation of the prime ministers nine months into the mandate. This experience has left bad blood between GERB and PP-DB, who polled 14.2% in the 27 October election.
GERB’s ability to form stable coalitions with other parties is also hindered by the other striking dividing line in recent times between pro-EU and pro-Russian stances. GERB and PP-DB’s pro-European stance stands in stark contrast to a strong pro-Russian lobby represented by the mainstream centre-left Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the radical right Revival, which won a combined 20% of the vote. Echoing events in Moldova and Georgia, Revival’s success underlines how elections in the region have become battlegrounds for Russian influence.
Even the “perennial party” has split
The fact the new parliament has no fewer than eight parties is also the product of a split in the Movement for Rights and Freedom (DPS). This party represents the ethnic Turkish population in Bulgaria and advocates a liberal and strongly pro-European position. For three decades, it has been one of the perennial features of Bulgarian politics, but an acrimonious leadership dispute has led to a fracturing of the party.
DPS has been dominated by media-mogul Delyan Peevski in recent years. Although he has been sanctioned under the US Magnitsky act for corruption, Peevski brought some benefits to DPS, mostly money. But shady deals with other parties, his support for measures in the judicial and media sphere that are viewed as eroding democracy, and his sidelining of DPS’s founder Ahmed Dogan fuelled discontent. This prompted a legal battle over who has the right to lead the party. In the end, two parties were registered for the election: DPS-New Beginning, led by Peevski, and the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS).
Peevski’s faction, with its slogan “Time for a New Beginning”, won 11.5% of the vote, compared to 7.5% for the APS. Strikingly, only a quarter of the ethnic Turkish vote supported Peevski, while 52% of Turks rallied behind Dogan’s APS and its main campaign slogan, “Together to Defend Democracy and Statehood”.
Peevski nevertheless garnered many votes among Bulgaria’s Roma community, underlining why the battle for the ethnic minority vote looks set to be an important theme in Bulgaria’s politics in the coming years. More immediately, given their combined total of 49 seats, Peevski and Dogan may end up playing an important role in supporting (or obstructing) a parliamentary majority.
The challenges of constructing a majority
With eight parties in parliament, there are theoretically many roads to a majority, but many options have already been ruled out. Several parties across the political spectrum, for instance, have stated that they will not work with Peevski. PP-DB even called for a cordon sanitaire. Removing Peevski’s 30 seats from the equation (out of the parliament’s 240) makes reaching the magical figure of 121 significantly harder.
Although GERB has announced its willingness to negotiate with all parties in parliament except for Revival, potential coalition parties appear less keen. Most roads to a majority require another deal between GERB and PP-DB, but the bickering and trading of insults between these parties fuelled by the experience of a previous coalition government has only raised the stakes.
PP-DB’s conditions for a coalition with GERB include radical anti-corruption reforms and an “equally-distanced” prime minister (an expert, not a political figure, and certainly not Borissov himself). But even if that deal could be struck, the combined 106 seats would still require at least one more member and for at least one party to go against its word, which is hardly a recipe for longevity.
Bulgaria could get the stable and durable government many citizens and investors want, but this would require levels of compromise, negotiation and political skill that go far beyond anything we have seen in recent Bulgarian political history. The smart money would be on an eighth election next year.
Europe-wide trends
Although the situation in Bulgaria appears unique, the trends that underline its political stalemate are Europe-wide. The rise of the radical right and the anti-establishment vote has dominated national elections across Europe in recent years as well as the latest European Parliament election.
In Bulgaria, support for the radical right has grown from its traditional 10-12% to over 20% in this latest election. In addition to growing nationalism, such growth fuels greater influence for Russia over domestic and European-level politics, as many radical-right parties across Europe have been known for their sympathy towards Putin’s regime.
The combination of fragmentation, polarisation and nationalism poses a tangible threat to democratic governance. Hungary is the starkest example of such dynamics, but many other countries, including Bulgaria, have experienced elements of democratic decline to varying degrees.
Against the backdrop of two wars at the EU’s borders and a presidential election in the United States that is likely to have a significant impact on geopolitics, democratic decline and instability in EU member states further undermines Europe’s unity and its ability to act on the global stage.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Union
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