Is the rift between the two factions of the DPS a prerequisite for ethnic tension in the country?
"I see the obvious fears of people when it comes to an ethnic party, when there is a very severe rift within, that it affects the whole political system and national security as well. On the other hand, it is a myth that Bulgarians and Turks will grab each other's throats if there is no DPS and we are savages from the third world who will kill themselves if there is no one to sit in the barn and keep the ethnic peace. I don't think that this historical role of DPS, which is being talked about, is still relevant", political analyst Kristijan Škvarek said in "Day ON AIR".
According to political scientist Teodor Slavev, there are no structural prerequisites for ethnic tension.
"The battle for the acronym is a symbolic one that is currently going through its legal phase, after which it will become highly political. DPS in the transition was the capital broker party between the political parties and the government and is about to lose this role. This campaign will be very interesting. The epicenter will be in Kardzhali, because Mr. Dogan will lead the paper there, Mr. Peevski will also lead the paper. Perhaps we should call on the leaders of the other parties to also take the lists there to campaign on the ground, because they all claim that they want to break the monopoly on the vote of the Bulgarian Turks. Here - now is the time to do it", the political scientist emphasized to Bulgaria ON AIR.
Conflicts between parties affect the functioning of the state
According to Shkvarek, the problems in the DPS are more like a clan and mafia conflict than a political one.
"Two wings of an ethnic party are currently fighting. The role of politicians and political leaders is to take political positions. I don't expect them to take sides in any almost civil conflicts between two mafia castes, who are currently taking out compromising documents about who stole what back in time, as if they found out yesterday," the political analyst pointed out.
Slavev is categorical that the tremors in the parties affect the functioning of the state.
"Everyone is looking at the election results, but the next parliament will be much more fragmented than the current one, even if we assume that both DPS break the 4 percent barrier, I expect others to enter as well - small parties, which will make management even more difficult and complicated", commented the guest.
It is possible that more parties will enter the new parliament
There is a possibility that there will be even more parties in the next parliament, because voter turnout will be lower, which makes the entry threshold very low, Shkvarek explained.
"At the moment there is a shake-up in two big parties, one is in DPS and it will incredibly make tens of thousands of Turks not go to vote at all and the other is the democratic community - PP-DB. These factors reduce general voter turnout. What I don't agree with is that this necessarily means there will be no cabinet. In the last 15 years, whenever we have had a regular cabinet for 4 years, it has happened under the conditions of an official majority and a hidden one in small parties," he pointed out.
Slavev added that when the threshold falls so low, there is a huge distortion of representativeness.
"Bulgarian society in terms of priorities, mood and visions for the future in no way represents what the National Assembly is. This low activity is a scourge on the aggregate output of what power produces. Now it turns out that an electorate that is scarce, in order to activate it in any way, the rhetoric has to go to some extremes. Now there are candidates talking about putting the gallows back on the streets. There are candidates who propose that the priests in the municipal councils should have the right of veto - to return the church to the management of the state," the political scientist said.