"Ukrainian Prism: Maybe for Christmas Bulgaria will give itself a pro-Western government

On October 27, an early vote was held in Bulgaria - the seventh attempt to elect a parliament in the last three years. So far, none of them has led to the creation of a stable and preferably pro-European coalition. And the votes of the pro-Russian party "Revival" they kept growing again and again. And although the results of the recent elections give hope for positive changes, they do not give hope for the rapid formation of a coalition, write Sergey Gerasimchuk and Vladimir-Nazarii Gavrish in an article for "Ukrainian Prism" published under the title "Bulgaria's Seventh Experience: why the new elections give a chance to overcome the deep political crisis“.

"Focus“ presents a translation of the summary of the material with the clarification that it reflects only the point of view of its authors.

Compared to the previous elections, the voter turnout in the current elections increased by 4.53% and reached 38.94%. This is a good sign, because in recent years the turnout in the Bulgarian elections has started to decrease significantly. Some experts believe that this shows that voters are tired of endless voting.

And most importantly, the low voter turnout worked in favor of the pro-Russian forces. Therefore, there was a real threat that pro-Russian voters would unite and eventually win a majority in the Bulgarian parliament, which would have extremely negative consequences.

Instead, the majority - 52.139% - in the new parliament was occupied by the classic Euro-Atlantic parties - parties interested in preserving European and Euro-Atlantic unity, namely GERB-SDS, PP-DB and DPS ("DPS - New Beginning".

True, this is still slightly less than what these parties had in common in the previous elections (56.1%), while the total support for the two classic pro-Russian parties – BSP and Vazrazhdane - even increased minimally (from 20.8% to 20.9%).

The peculiarity of these elections was that the Euro-Atlanticists actively tried to play the card of "hope for a way out of the permanent crisis”.

To repeat, this is already the seventh early election and the voter really needed hope that this would ever end.

The card was played - the voter gave another chance to the Euro-Atlanticians to finally form an effective and, most importantly, a stable government. It is true that, in any case, the GERB-SDS led by Boyko Borisov, which gathered the most votes, will remain extremely important.

One of the real scenarios for creating a coalition can be called "an old recipe with a new ingredient“.

It is a union of the Euro-Atlantic parties GERB-SDS and PP-DB, but also of the "Alliance for Rights and Freedoms" party – APS“ (led by Ahmed Dogan).

The latter is a "failure” as a result of the split in the DPS party, which focused primarily on the votes of the Turkish minority. Another part of the same party is called "DPS – A New Beginning“ (led by Delyan Peevski).

In this case, perhaps the main risk is Ahmed Dogan's position towards the Russian Federation.

In addition, there is a possibility of creating a minority government with the support of the two DPS (of Dogan and Peevski), which will not formally be included in the GERB-SDS and PP-DB coalition.

If the Euro-Atlanticists fail to form a government this time, there is a risk that tired voters will look for "alternative parties" that could potentially both continue the crisis and unite with pro-Russian forces in parliament.

One way or another, there is a real chance that the new parliament will be more viable than the previous ones.

And maybe this Christmas Bulgaria will present itself and us with a pro-Western government and restoration of political stability.