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We have a low voter turnout, huh... in a referendum? Elena Darieva in front of FACTS

People showed a red card to the Bulgarian political elite, says the sociologist

Jun 10, 2024 11:05 133

We have a low voter turnout, huh... in a referendum? Elena Darieva in front of FACTS  - 1

The vote for Parliament and European Parliament has passed, but what do the data show. Will we have a government, is the prospect of going to new elections facing us… Will Boyko Borisov try to form a cabinet, in what form, what is the challenge before GERB. Elena Darieva from the sociological agency "Nasoka" spoke to FACTS.

- Mrs. Darieva, is the “washing” finished? of Borisov. Are GERD already washed out…
- After these elections, GERB returns with greater self-confidence after a three-year retreat. They manage to regain a clear lead, but at what cost… An extremely heavy price, inasmuch as the voters showed a red card to the Bulgarian political elite. What I mean – low voter turnout, which is unprecedented in recent years.

This shows that we can already talk about a crisis of representation.

It is increasingly difficult to find parties with visionary leadership that can represent the people. As a result, we observe a strong fragmentation and dispersion of the vote among a number of smaller political entities, in which some short-term hopes are focused ad hoc.

- Is this how we can explain the interest in the "Greatness" party, which is the surprise of these elections. With the search for something different, something exotic, something new…
- The search for a political alternative undoubtedly increased the chances of the smaller political formations, but this became possible in combination with the low voter turnout. Otherwise, if the turnout was the same as we had years ago, or if you want to be at the levels of the previous elections, when we were talking about at least 40%, in order for a political party to enter the parliament, it had to have at least 100,000 votes. At the moment, if we assume that the voter turnout is around 30 and a few percent, this makes approximately 2 million votes, and even 80,000 votes are enough to overcome the 4% barrier. This, by the way, is a very serious phenomenon.

- Why?
- Because this can have an extremely important meaning and serious consequences. At the moment, under the emotion of the election night, we do not realize that with this low turnout, the controlled and bought vote weigh heavily. It is clear that with low turnout, hard-core parties win, and as a result, we have a better representation of GERB and DPS. But even empowered political entities like them have low political legitimacy insofar as they are elected by fewer people with the right to vote. And other. I remind you that it also depends on the voter turnout whether subsequent referendums will be mandatory or advisory in nature. I am opening the subject of referendums because they are an extremely important tool and are very actively exploited not only in pre-election periods, but also throughout the year. We know they are “in arms“ in several of the political parties that often reach out to them. By law, in order for the Bulgarian authorities to comply with the decision of a nationwide poll, at least as many people as those who voted in the last parliamentary elections must have participated in it, with at least half of them having voted “ FOR“. So, in a future national poll, at least as many people as voted in the last parliamentary elections will have to have participated. That is, already 2 million votes will be enough to legitimize the result of a referendum. Of course, half of them must have voted “FOR“, and then the decisions would have a mandatory, not a recommended, nature. This is extremely important. And something else that happened if we look at the highlights of yesterday.

- What were the main intrigues…
- The first political force has the task of forming a majority around itself. Thus, GERB, as the first political party, will have the responsibility to form a cabinet.

- How big the challenge will be…
- It's going to be extremely big because if I take you back to the beginning of the conversation, we said that GERD is coming back in full force after three years of isolation. GERB regained the leading role. And the expectations are precisely for them to be able to make a majority.

- How will it happen?
- This is difficult to predict, because we need to understand the final arrangement of political forces between the second and fourth place. We have to wait for the final CEC data because of the small differences. And this also became possible because of the low level of voter turnout.

- Do we have a seventh political formation in the parliament?
- It influences the configuration in the parliament and the search for a majority for a regular cabinet. When I spoke of these seventh political formations, let me draw attention to several important signals. First, the penalty vote. It finds itself concentrated in these new larger and smaller anti-establishment parties. This is a signal that we have a political crisis – traditional political formations, instead of inspiring, frustrate and fail to consolidate even their own voters. In addition, the spiral of elections erodes trust in the political process, and we are going from lower and lower voter turnout, which is already leading to a crisis of representativeness. And hence the legitimacy of the entities we expect to represent us. And here is the surprise - “Greatness“.

This political formation appeared in the pre-election polls, but not with such a significant share, and for this reason it fell into the “other“ category.

In the context of the election campaign, which was caressing from scandal to scandal in the national media. On the Internet, however, this campaign did not play out like that. Since the local vote last year, the parties have emphasized their presence on the Internet. This type of campaign gained additional momentum in the pandemic years - by the way, this process was especially strong in 2021, when direct contact with voters was limited, and then we had to go to the polls three times. Then the political parties effectively learned the power of the virtual campaign and it seems to me that a good knowledge of how this type of campaign affects the voter is increasingly important for the electoral performance of the formations. And in general, for the campaign of “Greatness” the use of social networks, tiktok, YouTube, etc. was very characteristic. And if we add the low voter turnout, we get the breakthrough. And another interesting thing is observed. The vote in the capital. The 24th multi-constituency is likely to be one of the record low voter turnouts. According to exit poll data, PP-DB will once again be in the leading position in Sofia, but it is with them that significant electoral erosion is registered. Support for them is concentrated in the capital, which causes a tendency for erosion throughout the country.