Bulgaria got "yes" for the eurozone, Borisov and Peevski clearly allied themselves, and the big new moment was the repression of the opposition: the last political season through the eyes of Daniel Smilov.
The political season is about to pass into the traditional August lull, unless the services and the prosecutor's office have prepared some new surprise for Friday after working hours. And this is not excluded, because in recent months Bulgaria has simultaneously moved closer to the eurozone and to a covert dictatorship. Or at least the ground was prepared for such a development particularly carefully. Therefore, the assessment of the political season is not unambiguous. If it had to be defined in one word - it would be "satisfactory", in two words - "very weak".
The Euro, Radev, the budget, Peevski
The following things happened:
1) The country received the coveted invitation to join the Eurozone. This should be enough to finally realize the coveted strategic goal, although there are pitfalls along the way. Unfortunately, the adoption of the Euro coincides with the accumulation of serious inflation in the world, which raises prices everywhere. This problem can be politically easily attributed to the Euro, although it rather stabilizes prices and limits inflation;
2) With his request for a referendum, President Radev is actually positioning himself against the common European currency (with nuances) and joining its other opponents. He hopes to take advantage of the situation with inflation and rising prices to accumulate political dividends. However, with his move, he risks marginalizing himself and limiting himself to the niche of "Vazrazhdane" and other more vocal anti-Europeans. Also, his continued wait regarding the creation of a political party confuses people. For the president, there is a risk of missing the right moment to enter the party race;
3) The 2025 budget was drawn up after numerous attacks on Assen Vassilev, including for a non-existent hole of 18 billion leva. EU assessments of the country's fiscal situation have proven that in recent years a disciplined fiscal policy has been pursued within the framework of the Maastricht criteria despite the tangible increase in the incomes of pensioners and civil servants. During this political season, GERB actually continued Vassilev's policy by adding a huge increase in salaries in the Ministry of Interior and the services, as well as billions for investment projects for municipalities and client networks, some of which will go through the Bulgarian Development Bank. Because of this, the 2025 budget will probably end up with a serious deficit and will have to be reworked. Bulgaria can afford some fiscal expansion, since our total debt is at minimal values relative to GDP. But if we do with the appetite demonstrated by GERB and "New Beginning" in 2025, fiscal policy will prove to be highly problematic in just a few years;
4) GERB and "New Beginning" made sure that there would be no political majority in the National Assembly without Delyan Peevski. Even during the negotiations for a government, "We continue the change" - "Democratic Bulgaria" (PP-DB), and then Dogan's Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS) were subjected to institutional harassment, expelled from the ruling majority and finally deprived of the MRF brand, as well as many of their mayors;
The season of repression against the opposition
If everything had stopped there, things would have been more or less fine: membership in the eurozone against an attempt to legitimize this "unexplained love" between Borisov and Peevski, which began to formalize itself into a life of family political principles.
Alas, however, the big new moment in the political season was the repression against the opposition. Even in Dogan's approach against the APS, it was clear that the country's institutions were being used for party goals and private interests. Serious doubts arose that under pressure from the services, Dzhevdet Chakarov - still the leader of the APS - was forced to give up his post and his political ideas and values. The consensus was striking that Chakarov was acting under pressure from him and his son. No one has actually investigated what exactly the services did, what was the reason for his strange behavior, what happened to his son and his accusations, etc. Silence, which is a wonderful environment for political violence and repression.
If what happened to Chakarov and the APS mayors could have been some form of intra-party conflict, the subsequent events regarding the PP and to some extent the DB confirmed that this is a model, a common method by which the ruling party acts against the opposition. To put it bluntly, services are being deployed to dig around representatives of the opposition in local government, to co-opt certain people as "witnesses", to fabricate accusations of terrible criminal groups based on very dubious testimony. All of this is being blamed on the opposition party and its leaders, with the goal of compromising them and removing their official representatives in the executive branch.
Including now through arrests of mayors, with the most scandalous cases being in Sofia and Varna. Especially with regard to the Varna case, there are reasonable doubts that everything was sewn with a lot of white threads, but this did not prevent two courts from confirming the arrests.
The result of the attack on the PP led to the resignation of one of its leaders - Kiril Petkov - who decided to play by the rules of the democratic game and take responsibility for obviously problematic personnel decisions. In this case, they are the choice of mayors of Sofia districts from the PP, who participated in the "cooking" of the PP. The reason for the renegade is not entirely clear, but it in itself justifies Petkov's resignation as a gesture with which he wanted to remove any doubt about dishonesty on the part of the party itself and its leaders.
After the services repeated the scenario from Sofia to Varna, everyone already understood that this was an organized attack on the opposition and thousands of citizens went out to protest in different cities of the country. This protest has great potential and will surely open the autumn political season with a serious burst of civic energy.
Parliamentary elections in the fall are not ruled out
The conclusions that can be drawn based on these events are the following:
The opposition - especially the PP - was attacked with the idea of destroying it, but this did not happen, unless one judges by the research of sociological agencies that have moved into the field of political PR;
The country is sliding towards political repression and an autocratic model of governance, but there are still brakes in this process. EU membership is an important deterrent, as is the reluctance of the Trump administration to directly engage with Borisov and Peevski. From a transactional point of view (which is Trump's policy), it is much more convenient for the two Bulgarian tartars to be on the "Magnitsky" list or very close to it, which gives the Americans huge negotiating leverage. Borisov's alliance with Trump also faces another difficulty - the favorites in Europe of the current American administration are similar to the "Alternative for Germany" national-populist formations. While it is not a problem for Peevski to turn the MRF into such a force, after he managed to expel Dogan from the party, in GERB some people will probably at least be puzzled by such a push. That is why Borisov has not yet gone straight through the authoritarian cornfield, but is doing it covertly, with short detours. How long this will be the case is difficult to predict and, alas, depends more on the international environment than on the value convictions of the native protagonists;
President Radev cannot simultaneously join the protests against the ruling party and those against the euro - these are two opposing causes between which he will have to choose. If not directly, then at least as a priority. His choice will become clear in the fall;
Parliamentary elections in the fall are not ruled out. Borisov must also make a value choice - whether to support Peevski in the persecution of the opposition or to continue (unsuccessfully) to pretend that he has nothing to do with this matter. Both options will deprive GERB of any legitimacy and will pair it tightly with Peevski's MRF. Only elections can at least postpone such a development, and it is no wonder that Borisov prefers it. A separate factor is Peevski's calculations in the situation - he may also consider that it is more profitable for him to kill the APS in the elections and increase his presence in the National Assembly, especially if Radev is hesitant and fails to join the political race in time.
The citizens still have a say
Ultimately, Bulgaria is still a democracy, insofar as - with all the arrangements for abuse of office, buying and manipulating votes, etc. - the citizens still have the last word. They have it in elections, they have it with their right to protest. Citizens can confuse the calculations of even the biggest political crooks. But it is good for them to do so in order to resist their freedom and their right to choose, and not simply out of a desire to rub someone's nose in.
PS. The case of Ivancheva, who was recently pardoned by the presidential institution, is suspiciously similar to what is currently happening with the APS and PP. An opposition district mayor is the subject of a special operation by services and the prosecutor's office. There are also various details and court decisions of many instances on this case. But it is good to review it objectively again in light of new events, because it would be terrible if it turned out that an innocent person was in prison for one political reason or another. No matter how small the probability of this, all doubts should be cleared up.
This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Gazette as a whole.