ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 23, No. 1 (BG)

November 2019

Bulgaria political briefing: THE RULING PARTY WON THE LOCAL ELECTIONS IN Evgeniy Kandilarov

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

THE RULING PARTY WON THE LOCAL ELECTIONS IN BULGARIA

The official election campaign period for Bulgaria’s autumn 2019 mayoral and municipal elections began on September 27. The elections are scheduled ones, being held four years after the previous local elections in 2015. Elections are being held in all 265 municipalities in Bulgaria’s 28 districts. In all, a total of 6 227 901 people are eligible to vote, including adult Bulgarian citizens and citizens of other European Union countries resident in Bulgaria. Across the country, there were 36 288 candidates. A total of 1254 were candidate municipal mayors, 5059 were candidate mayoralty mayors, and 460 were candidate district mayors. There were also 29 515 candidate municipal councilors. The largest number of candidate mayors was in , 19, followed by Plovdiv, 14. In 397 mayoralties, there was only one candidate mayor. All candidates have been be checked by the Dossier Commission for affiliation to the communist-era secret service State Security or military intelligence of the Bulgarian People’s Army. Sixty-six parties and coalitions have registered to participate in the elections. The media were obliged by law to state which content has been paid for. In August, Bulgaria’s Cabinet approved spending 70.7 million leva (about 36.1 million euro) on the country’s autumn 2019 municipal elections, a record budget for an election in Bulgaria. The official campaign period ended at midnight on October 25. On October 26 and 27, no campaigning have been permitted and the results of opinion polls couldn’t be published until voting ends on October 27. Here are the main players, who were competing in the local elections in Bulgaria: - GERB – hailing from the European People’s Party, this is the country’s strongest political force. Despite being recently rocked by corruption scandals and inside fighting, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s party still remains the most powerful group in the country. - BSP – the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the main opposition party in the country. Despite being a member of the Party of European Socialists, the BSP is socialist only in name and in theory. Party leader Korneliya Ninova took a sharp rightward turn after coming into power, attempting to channel Eurosceptic, anti-migrant and anti-LGBT sentiment in the country. - MRF (DPS) – firmly entrenched in power based on geographical location, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Renew Europe) is a Turkish ethnic minority party that has been the country’s swing vote over the past 30 years.

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- VMRO – Bulgaria’s take on right nationalism and patriotism. - DB – a group of centrist, centre-right and centre-left parties made up of previous heavy hitters who have shaped the country in the past. Its electorate is mainly focused in large urban centres and fails to project power outside the major cities. While these are the main actors, it’s worth keeping in mind that a total of 66 parties were registered for these local elections, heavily fragmenting the vote in different regions of the country. The first round of the regular local elections in Bulgaria went smoothly without any significant violations, the Central Election Commission announced. The voter turnout was 42.85% (2 709 340 people cast their ballots out of all 6 322 979 Bulgarians who have the right to vote). Voter turnout was similar to the one in 2015. In Sofia voter turnout was 32.22%, in Plovdiv it was 33.50%, in Varna voter turnout was 30.60%, in Burgas-34.27%, in Kardzhali- 42.72% and Veliko Tarnovo-39.44%. Bulgaria’s mayoral and municipal elections on October 27 showed that Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party had won the largest share of votes, but with fewer decisive victories than in the local vote four years earlier. In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, incumbent mayor and GERB candidate Yordanka Fandukova failed to repeat her previous first-round victories. With 18 candidates dropping out after voting closed, the second-round contest in Sofia on November 3 was between Fandukova and former national Ombudsman Maya Manolova, who was backed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party and a range of smaller parties. In Sofia, however, Manolova’s performance was weaker than had been predicted in pre-election opinion polls, while a credible third place was taken by Borislav Ignatov, the mayoral candidate of the reformist Democratic Bulgaria coalition. After the first-round voting, Fandukova was said to have a lead over Manolova of about nine points, against pre-election polls that had shown the race as effectively neck-and-neck. The pair of candidates with the largest share of the vote, who couldn’t overcome the 50 per cent barrier in the first round, have been given a second chance in the run-offs on 3 November. On 3 November Bulgarians went to the ballot box for a second time in a week, voting for mayors and municipal councils in the run-off to local elections 2019. A second round have been held only in the towns and villages where no one has emerged as an outright winner in the first round, securing an absolute majority of 50 per cent plus 1 of all eligible ballots. According to Bulgaria’s Electoral Code, regional elections are held in two rounds. The second round is open to those contenders, usually a pair, who have scooped the greatest number of votes, no matter how far apart they stand in election results.

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There was no second round in 9 district capital cities – Vratsa, Montana, Stara Zagora, Burgas, Veliko Tarnovo, Kardjali, Gabrovo, Kyustendil and Haskovo. Those cities have been elected mayors following first round victories. Eight of them are GERB ruling party stalwarts and one, the mayor of Kardjali, was the perennial candidate of the Turkish minority party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which was the dominant political force in that region. It is noteworthy that many of the incumbent mayors in the large district cities have run again – and have won. Record holder among them is the mayor of the city of Montana Zlatko Zhivkov, who secured a sixth consecutive term with the resounding 71,75% share of the vote. He is followed by Hasan Azis, who won his fifth term as mayor of Kardjali with 53,02%. The mayor of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov was re-elected for a fourth term, grabbing 65.83% of the vote. A sizeable majority (68.63%) of voters in Stara Zagora entrusted mayor Zhivko Todorov with a third consecutive term. As analysts point out, in some cases, the new credit of trust was a recognition of a job well done, otherwise voters simply didn’t see any real alternative to the present local government among the listed candidates. The second round, which have seen contending candidates in 97 municipalities, including the district capital cities of Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse, Blagoevgrad, Pleven, Pernik, Shumen and Yambol, were not without surprises. A complicated entanglement was in store especially for Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia – a traditional stronghold of right-leaning voters. Much-criticized incumbent mayor (GERB), now in her third term of office have been facing independent runner-up and popular ex-ombudsman Maya Manolova, supported by the oppositional Bulgarian Socialist Party, who lagged Fandakova in the first round by just 9 percentage points. The vote in Sofia was also depending on the choice of supporters of two emerging players – Democratic Bulgaria coalition and Save Sofia citizen’s alliance, whose own candidates have lost the race. With the Central Election Commission having announced all ballots tallied, both rounds of Bulgaria’s 2019 local elections are over. A total of 36,233 candidates ran for mayoral and municipal council seats. Nationwide voter turnout hovered at 43 percent among 6.2 million eligible voters, with observers saying many didn’t come out to vote because they felt the outcome had been predetermined. The scorecard shows that Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB party won the mayoral elections in, out of 27 “regional centres” – meaning, cities that are capitals of districts, a total of 17. While the number is large, it is less than the dominating performance in major cities achieved by GERB in the previous scheduled local elections in 2015. Four years

3 ago, GERB won 22 of the 28 regional cities, winning 11 of them in the first round. The political canvas looks different this time around. Actually Prime Minister ’s GERB party has won all but one major election since 2009. Something that also has to be taken into account is that In elections to the EU parliament in May, GERB emerged as the leading party despite allegations of corruption against prominent party officials. Of GERB’s victories, eight were at the first round and nine at the second. Borissov’s party also found itself in more second-round contests than four years ago. GERB lost control of three smaller cities, Pleven, Pazardzhik and Yambol, to independent candidates and four regional centres – Pernik, Blagoevgrad, Razgrad, and Ruse, the fifth-largest city – to the BSP. Kornelia Ninova’s opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party regained ground it had lost four years earlier, retaking the mayoral chairs – either with candidates in its own name or that it backed – in Blagoevgrad, Pernik and Razgrad, and decisively thrashing GERB’s candidate in Bulgaria’s Danube city of Rousse, where Borissov’s party had won at the first round in 2015. Apart from GERB’s victories, of the 27 regional centres, the BSP won in four (all at the second round), the Movement for Rights and Freedoms held its traditional stronghold in Kurdzhali (at the first round), while five contests were won by mayoral candidates from local coalitions or initiative committees. The final results show that the margin for the mayoral post in Sofia between GERB's Yordanka Fandakova and independent runner backed by the BSP Maya Manolova was 4.85 per cent in Fandakova's favour. Fandakova won 49.98 per cent of the votes, while Manolova got 45.13 per cent. In absolute votes, the GERB candidate and current mayor has 209 542 votes, while Independent Manolova lags just over 20,000 votes - 189 176 people cast their ballots. 20 493 Sofia residents came to the ballot boxes and voted "I do not support anyone". This makes 4.89%.

Voter turnout In the Bulgarian capital was 35.8 per cent. Central Election Comission announces that eligible voters in the local elections in Sofia totaled 1,064,705 people. The mayoral race in Sofia was heavily contested for the first time in 14 years, as dissatisfaction with poor repair work, bad air quality during winter and persistent underdevelopment of public infrastructure, such as kindergartens and public transport, grew in recent months.

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Manolova, of the main opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, gathered support from various political and civic circles but failed to win over the traditionally anti-BSP electorate in Sofia. Speaking to Bulgarian National Radio on November 4, Nikola Vaptsarov of the Manolova initiative committee said that it would seek nullification of the elections based the understanding that the vote was manipulated. Evidence of this was the errors in voting protocols, multiple allegations of vote-buying, and the breaking of the law, including by the media, regarding the ban on disclosing running results of exit polls while voting was still proceeding. This latter factor had discouraged people from voting, Vaptsarov said, given that it had been claimed through the course of the day that Fandukova had a lead of 15 to 18 per cent points ahead of Manolova. Speaking at a briefing on the night of November 3 after voting ended Manolova said that she did her best in a difficult, cruel and profane campaign. At no point she responded with vandalism to the acts of vandalism, to the lies with lies and the aggression with aggression. According the Bulgarian laws any candidate could request a nullification of election results by going to court. The court can order the counting of the ballots again and if a violation is found then, yes, the election will be overturned. This would be followed by new elections. About 130 violations were registered with the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), the complaints were mainly referred to the Municipal Electoral Commission, on whose territory they occurred. Vote buying is the most serious violation in the election process, along with agitation and announcing exit polls by various websites. CEC confirmed there were invalid ballots, “not a small number”, which according to CEC was due to the insufficient training of the sectional election committees, on the one hand, and to the large number of ballots and preferences, which made the choice difficult, on the other hand. The local elections held on 27 October 2019 proved one major thing – Bulgaria is the exception to the Eastern European rule. Unlike Romania, Hungary and Poland, centrist parties in the Balkan country not only managed to hold their ground, but they successfully fended off the assault of the far right and the populist insurgents. The Bulgarian centrist parties not only managed to survive but were able to significantly hinder the surge of any far right activity. The Bulgarian Socialist Party fared substantially better than the far-right. But that’s not saying much. The Bulgarian Socialist Party fared substantially better than in 2015. But that’s not saying much either. Back in 2015, the BSP was on the verge of collapse and failed to secure any of the larger urban areas. The socialists were unable to retain any of their traditional strongholds and lost control of many local governments across the country. Compared to the absolutely disastrous results of the last municipal elections, the 2019 edition can really be seen as a great achievement and victory. At least the party didn’t disintegrate. Nonetheless the main

5 opposition party managed to secure a decent showing pretty much only in the northern city of Ruse, where their candidate for mayor won first place with around 32% of the vote. Ruse is the only larger city where the BSP is heading into a 2nd round with a lead. GERB is still having leading positions. Suffering serious setbacks, especially in the capital, the ruling party should be counting its blessings. The abysmal showing of their opponents and their respective disastrous campaigns allowed for the party leadership to scrape by in the wake of massive corruption scandals and infighting. With the opposition yet again railing and proving itself unable to rally voters, the Bulgarian government appears stable and safe from outside attacks. Meanwhile on the inside, the weak showing of the far-right VMRO (GERB’s coalition partners) leaves Prime Minister Boyko Borissov with two options: to keep on going with the current arrangement, not letting the VMRO go and letting them tire themselves out further or to use the apparent lack of support for other parties to have a go at a larger majority by calling a snap election. Of these two, option the first one seems far more likely. The mantra of PM Borissov is that stability is key. Leading the country to its 4th general election in 6 years is pretty much the opposite and would significantly (further) damage GERB’s image as the “serious” party.

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