Bulgaria Political Briefing: Political Deadlock in Bulgaria Led to a Political Crises and Call for an Early Parliamentary Election in July Evgeniy Kandilarov

Home , Boyko Borisov, Daniel Mitov, GERB, Slavi Trifonov

ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 40, No. 1 (BG)

May 2021

Bulgaria political briefing: Political Deadlock in Bulgaria Led to a Political Crises and Call for an Early Parliamentary Election in July Evgeniy Kandilarov

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Political Deadlock in Bulgaria Led to a Political Crises and

Call for an Early Parliamentary Election in July

Summary In the last month, Bulgaria has fallen into a serious political crisis. After the elections held on April 4, none of the parties or coalitions that entered the new Bulgarian parliament had a majority in order to form a government. According to the country's constitution, the party with the most votes received the right to form a government. This was the center-right party GERB. However, it failed to form a government because it did not receive the support of any of the other parties and coalitions in parliament. Again, the second largest parliamentary party received a mandate to form a government by constitution. This is the newly formed and opposing political force "There is such people". Its leader is the popular singer and TV showman Slavi Trifonov. However, the party refused to try to form a government and immediately returned the mandate. Thus, according to the constitution, the president handed over for the third and last time a mandate to form a government of the third largest political party in the parliament - the Bulgarian Socialist Party. However, it also refused to try to form a government. Thus, the country fell into a state of political crisis, in which the president will dissolve the National Assembly, call new parliamentary elections and appoint a caretaker cabinet.

The result of the parliamentary elections held in Bulgaria on April 4 was an extremely fragmented parliament, in which no political party or coalition has a majority and therefore couldn’t easily form a stable government. The centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) and its leader, Boyko Borisov, won the most seats in the Parliament with an estimated 26% of the vote. However, the party lost votes amid widespread protests against corruption and failed to find any coalition partners. These developments have also marginalized the political influence of the other traditional parties in the Bulgarian political system. This opened the door to three new parties which entered parliament on the back of a wave of growing public dissatisfaction. Overall, the election results suggest that Bulgarian politics is currently experiencing a period of significant change. The three new parties joining the parliament include two populist parties, ‘There is Such a

People’ (TISP) and ‘Stand Up! Mafia Out!’, as well as Democratic Bulgaria (DB), which is a coalition of liberal and green forces. Combined, they won around 32% of the vote. The newly formed “There is Such People” pushed the BSP out of second place and is now the main opposition to GERB. This party managed to mobilize most of Bulgarian diaspora abroad voters as well as the youth vote. The party has anti-establishment platform with soft nationalist elements. Another important change was Democratic Bulgaria winning the vote in the capital Sofia for the first time since GERB came to power. The traditional centre-left BSP suffered a major electoral failure by dropping 13 points compared to the last election in 2017. This is the worst result in its post-socialist history and a particularly dramatic one as it comes following a period in opposition. The BSP failed to mobilize even its core voters. The Turkish minority party “Movement for Rights and Freedom” also lost its king-maker role, having been pushed into fourth place by TISP and the BSP. This way with no clear winner in Bulgarian Parliament, making government formation became a challenging task. Each of the political forces that decided to try to form a cabinet had to negotiate with the others to gain additional support. At the same time, however, even before the elections, most of the parties had stated categorically that they would not form a coalition with Boyko Borissov's ruling party for the last ten years - GERB. After the wave of anti- government protests and increasing public tensions, GERB faces a stronger and less compromising opposition than before According to the constitution, the largest parliamentary group was the first to form a government. This is a political party GERB, which is in coalition with the Union of Democratic Forces. They have the largest number of deputies in the parliament (75 out of 240). GERB proposition for the next Prime Minister was Daniel Mitov, a former minister of foreign affairs in one of the previous cabinets of Boyko Borissov. Borisov has sought a breakthrough by proposing a more acceptable candidate for Prime Minister, instead of himself. After receiving the mandate to form government GERB-UDF invited the “There Is Such a People” (TISP) party to consultations for putting together a government. In a written response presented to journalists, the party said: "We consider GERB to be the main symbol of the status- quo, and it is out of the question to discuss any government proposed by that party." GERB-UDF also invited Democratic Bulgaria to talks about the future government. Democratic Bulgaria, too, declined the invitation, arguing that GERB remains the main vehicle of "the flawed Borissov model of governance."

Three days after receiving a mandate to attempt to get a government approved, the GERB- UDF coalition officially gave up on April 23. Again, according to the constitutional order, the president gave a mandate to form a government to the second largest political force represented in parliament – “There is such a people”. The number of their deputies is 51. The leader of this party is Slavi Trifonov, a popular talk show host and musician with no governing experience. His party nominated the chess champion Antoaneta Stefanova, as Prime Minister, but at the same time Trifonov said that she would turn down a mandate to get a government approved by Parliament. An April 26 post on Trifonov’s Facebook page said that his party did not have the necessary number of MPs or partners to form a government. “The support offered is from political actors who are noxious, greedy and proven to be compromised,” the post said. According to Trifonov’s post this offer of support meant not support but dependence. Thus “There is Such People” refused to even start coalition talks, saying it will not accept support from GERB, the BSP or the ethnic-Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), while the MPs of the other two newcomers in parliament – Democratic Bulgaria and Stand up! Mafia out! – would not be enough for a majority. So Antoaneta Stefanova accepted the mandate and returned it immediately. After “There Is Such a People” returned the mandate, the president was required to hand the mandate to a representative of one of the remaining parliamentary groups. The president's decision was to give a mandate for the third time to form a government to the third largest parliamentary group – the one of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Soon after that at a special meeting on May 1, the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party approved a recommendation by the executive bureau that the party will immediately return the mandate. The decision by the BSP, taken after a meeting lasting more than three hours, formally set Bulgaria on course for new parliamentary elections. At the opening of the National Council meeting, PSP leader Cornelia Ninova said that the party has three options. First was to accept the mandate and present a BSP government to the National Assembly for approval. It was unlikely that the National Assembly would approve such a government, she said. The second option was to form a “non-partisan expert and programme government”. This too was unlikely to win parliamentary approval, but also might be supported by GERB, and that would be damaging to the BSP. The third option for the BSP was to return the mandate and give the public an “honest explanation” why. At this stage, the BSP did not have the support of the voters, and the “other parties of change” in Parliament. This was a reference to Trifonov’s “There is such people”, Hristo Ivanov’s Democratic Bulgaria and the “Rise Up! Mafia Out!” group.

BSP leader said that it was not possible for the party to form a government with GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. At the same time, another argument of Ninova was that the party did not receive support from the second-largest party in the parliament, meaning “There is Such People”. Thus, on May 5, the BSP also returned the mandate to form a government. Finally the parties in the 45th Parliament failed to form a cabinet. After the failure of the third-mandate stage, the constitution obliges the President to dissolve Parliament, appoint a caretaker government and decree a date for elections two months after dissolving the parliament. For the first time in Bulgaria’s modern history, a few months after regular parliamentary elections, there will be an early election for a new National Assembly. In conclusion, Bulgaria is heading for a fresh election after the country’s largest parties have been unable to form a government after the parliamentary elections held on April 4. The President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev announced on May 5, 2021, that he will call a snap parliamentary election for July 2021. He also added that he will name a technocrat interim cabinet next week after the politicians failed in a third attempt to form a government a month after an inconclusive vote. While commenting on an ongoing political crisis in the country, the President of Bulgaria stated that the country needs a strong-willed political alternative, which the current Parliament has failed to provide. The President added that next week he will dissolve the Parliament and will appoint an interim government and that in this situation, an election is expected to take place on July 11. The President commented also that he planned on appointing experts to the caretaker cabinet. He, however, did not reveal his choice for a Prime Minister. The Cabinet has been expected to include the members of the Socialist Party which have already confirmed that it will support Radev in his own re-election in the a Presidential vote during the autumn. The caretaker government will face a challenging agenda of managing a health and economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic within a tight budget it cannot amend, and of ensuring a fair election. A recent opinion poll showed that GERB remains the most popular party, but its key rival, Trifonov's “There Is Such a People” is a close second, raising the prospect of continued fragmentation in which politicians will continue struggle to form a stable coalition in the next Parliament as well.