Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
What government will be formed after the seventh early elections - pro-European and Euro-Atlantic or whatever. This is the question after the closing of the polling stations and it is not at all mathematical, but a value-based one considering Bulgaria's goals - the eurozone and Schengen, as well as support for Ukraine.
Bulgaria will again have a parliament for which the minority of voters voted - under 38%, with even greater fragmentation of the political system and strengthening of the populist vote. Nine political forces will have representation in the 51st National Assembly - GERB-SDS (26.15%), PP-DB (15.14%), "Vazrazhdane" (13.70%), DPS-New Beginning (10.36%), BSP-United Left (7.68%), Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (7.02%), "There is such a people" (6.97%), MECH (4.65%) and "Majesty" (4.08%). These are the data with 88% of the protocols processed.
Whatever shifts occur, they will not change the place of the first and its lead of over 10% over the second. Unprecedented in recent years, but this time after the end of election day, GERB leader Boyko Borisov made a statement to publicly declare the party's responsibility to form a cabinet with anyone who supports its program - with the exception of "Vazrazhdane". He did not rule out DPS-New Beginning with leader Delyan Peevski, but warned of the difficulty of the major fragmentation: "If all these parties enter - I know from now on that we will not have a government".
Eurosceptic bloc in the 51st parliament
In the future parliament, the sisters of the pro-Russian and national-populist "Vazrazhdane" will be more numerous. In addition to the BSP and ITN, "Velichy" has a chance of entering again, this time with the creator of the Historical Park Ivelin Mihaylov, who believes that Bulgaria should not help Ukraine. MECH will also be presented, calling for an immediate suspension of military aid to Ukraine and a policy of complete neutrality. Its leader Radostin Vassilev defines the formation as a "modernized version of a pro-Orban project in Bulgaria". He entered politics through ITN, then moved to "We Continue the Change", in whose government he was sports minister and from which he was expelled due to the leaked recording of a leadership meeting.
This Eurosceptic bloc, whose components (like the president) maintain a line of neutrality in Russia's war against Ukraine, holds over a third of the future parliament. And the geopolitical orientation of Dogana's Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS) has not yet been fully clarified, if the Euro-Atlanticism of the other part of the split MRF - Delyan Peevski's New Beginning - can be taken at face value.
Four of the parties in this anti-EU bloc - "Vazrazhdane", BSP, "Velichy" and ITN, want to prevent the adoption of the euro. Some of them with the formal argument that Bulgaria is not ready, and others like Ivelin Mihaylov - that the euro will take away sovereignty and "will turn us into a federal republic".
On the night after the election, political scientists included ITN in their predictions for a future government. But would Slavi Trifonov's formation support a program for governance in which a fast track to the eurozone is among the priorities? Although it does not position itself firmly as Eurosceptic or anti-NATO, its identity is national-populist in combination with anti-elitist rhetoric. For now, ITN has announced that they will not cooperate only with Peevski's MRF.
In the brief statement of the leaders of PP and DSB, part of "Democratic Bulgaria", the coalition stated that the ball is in GERB's court, and their priority will be anti-corruption laws. After participating in the "assembly" - the joint 9-month government with PP-DB, Boyko Borisov's party is no longer the formation with which no one wants to collaborate and an anti-GERB alliance like in 2021-2022 is not possible. "We sit down and agree with the second about who else to invite", Borisov said recently in an interview on Darik radio. The second - PP-DB, do not give any indications that they want to retreat from their formula for an "equidistant" prime minister, but negotiations are ahead.
Peevski's legitimation
DPS-New Beginning registers supremacy over the "authentic DPS" as an independent party and thus legitimizes Peevski as a leader with his formation. The oligarch, sanctioned for corruption by the US and the UK, who ranks last among politicians in terms of trust - 2%, fulfilled his prediction that trust "is most accurately measured in elections".
"The MRF stronghold" Kardzhali is now "Peevski's stronghold", after 54% of voters in the area with a compact Turkish population voted for MRF-New Beginning. Just like in the elections on June 9, when the Movement for Rights and Freedoms was united, buses and cars from Turkey poured into Kardzhali, bringing entire families of emigrants to vote. Some of them did not even know which MRF to cast their ballot for.
However, the expert from the Center for the Study of Democracy Tihomir Bezlov commented to the Bulgarian National Radio that "the so-called "New Beginning" has a solid vote-buying campaign". "I judge by this that there is a very large concentration of Roma votes there", he said and recommended checking the results of the risky sections to see which parties dominate them.
The attraction of a significant share of votes from the Roma ethnic group to the MRF-New Beginning was also noted by sociological agencies. Before the elections, the PP-DB, the organization "Bulgarian Elves", which monitors and documents vote-buying practices, as well as the BOEC announced lists of vote sellers and prepared vote manipulations. The Ministry of Interior reports over 70% more signals of election violations in this election campaign compared to the vote on June 9. And 43% of citizens surveyed by the "Alpha Research" agency believe that elections are not becoming fairer.
A (constitutional) majority is still being sought
Even if a majority is formed for a government, however, a qualified majority of two-thirds or 160 parliamentary votes will again be needed for the parliament to elect 11 new members of the Supreme Judicial Council - a task that has been postponed for more than two years. This means reaching a compromise between at least four political forces, and the election is more than necessary, since the current personnel of the judiciary have launched the procedure for electing a new prosecutor general. And the only candidacy is the temporary acting prosecutor Borislav Sarafov.
For some of the regulators who have exceeded their mandates, the same majority of 160 votes is needed. In the previous parliament, such a coalition was secured by GERB-SDF, PP-DB and MRF, but it collapsed during disputes over the leadership of the anti-corruption commission and other personnel decisions.
But if it wants to make up for the delay in the Recovery and Resilience Plan, where anti-corruption legislation is included as a condition, the 51st parliament will have to adopt some laws and elect a leadership of the Commission for Counteracting Corruption. With an anti-European bloc in the future National Assembly, the big question is how far the future compromises for all these elections will go.
The seventh early parliamentary elections again did not show the outcome, but there is already a danger for the direction.