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Outlook of the Political 2021 Year for Bulgaria Evgeniy Kandilarov

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Outlook of the Political 2021 Year for Bulgaria Evgeniy Kandilarov ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 36, No. 1 (BG) January 2021 Bulgaria political briefing: Outlook of the Political 2021 year for Bulgaria 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 Outlook of the Political 2021 year for Bulgaria For Bulgaria, as well as for all other countries in the world, the past 2020 was marked predominantly by the pandemic caused by the coronavirus and the ensuing health crisis. Given that the pandemic is still raging and it is completely unclear how long this process will last and what consequences it will have, all the forecast for the coming 2021 seems extremely complicated and quite difficult. However, some clear and visible political trends can be outlined. During the last year In Bulgaria, the health and socio-economic crisis followed and resulted in the political crisis, which led to a collapse of trust in the institutions, political parties and individuals who represent them. The development of this trend is especially important in view of the coming 2021 year, mainly because two extremely important political events are coming up in Bulgaria, which will outline the government and respectively the development of the country in the next four years. First of all, it is about holding the regular parliamentary elections, which will be held in the spring of 2021. After that, during the autumn the regular presidential elections are planned to take place. So after them the newly elected president should take the office in January 2022. Still many questions remain such as when exactly the elections will take place, with respect to the development of the pandemic as well as will there be more changes in the electoral code, will machine and remote voting be allowed, will the epidemic have an impact on the electoral activity etc. To these issues must be added some others like what is the attitude of the population towards the various political parties, as well as where the protest vote, which took effect in the middle of last year, will go. In addition, last year, several new political entities appeared or at least applied to participate in the upcoming vote. Parliamentary elections Borissov's government was delegitimized to a great extent last year by number of scandals and wide spread social-political protests of the Bulgarian population. However the government survived protests and resignation demands, the tensions across society remain. This is a serious prerequisite for the parliament to not be the same as the old one after elections. Most probably there will be a change, both party and political. However it seems that there will be no radical change in the ratio between the largest parties (GERB and BSP). It is 1 even possible that GERB will again be the first in the number of mandates, but most likely they will not have a majority. Winning seats in Bulgaria’s National Assembly requires crossing a threshold of a four per cent share of the vote. At the same time, the question of how many parties have a chance to cross the 4% barrier and enter the future parliament depends on turnout. With higher-than-usual turnout, ie about 60% of those eligible to vote, new political parties that have not been part of the parliamentary-represented political forces so far will have the opportunity to enter parliament. With lower turnout of about 40%, no more than 3-4 parties will be able to enter parliament. So far analysts predict low voter turnout. This is a phenomenon that has been registered in all European countries that have held elections in recent months. All registered a low turnout. About 49.6 per cent of those polled in December 2020 said that they intended to vote at the forthcoming elections during the year. Twenty-eight per cent are hesitant about whether to vote and 22 per cent do not intend to vote at all. Since 1991, 9 parliamentary elections have been held in Bulgaria. In this regard, the elections in 2021 will be an anniversary - for the 10th time. Throughout this period, the smallest number of parties elected in the parliament was once - 3 parties (in 1991), and the biggest number of elected parties was 8 (2014). Beside that there have always been a "new players" in the electoral campaigns. For 2021, sociological forecasts provide for the election of between 4 and 6 parties to be able to enter the future Parliament. The winner will be the party with the most votes and respectively mandates. It is not clear whether it will be able to form a cabinet. Analysts do not allow the possibility of an absolute majority, but most likely expect a coalition government again, which corresponds to the peculiarities of the proportional electoral system applied in Bulgaria. Sociological data show that up to that moment GERB remains in first place. And this is despite the internal turmoil in this party and the protests against its government. One of the most serious factors that will influence the voter motivation campaign is the lack of a strong political opponent of GERB. At the same time, the results of the elections will be highly dependent on the question how the results of the government's work to deal with the crisis caused by the pandemic will be finally assessed. Sociological research so far provides a snapshot of a rather fragmented future National Assembly. According to some sociological polls if the election were held today, the most likely result would be a National Assembly with six political parties, an unstable majority and a difficult governing coalition. 2 Again according to the sociological research Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party has 24.3 per cent support and Kornelia Ninova’s opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party 21.9 per cent support among those who intended to vote. In third place was television showmen Slavi Trifonov’s party “There is Such People” with 10.2 per cent. This is one of the newly emerged political formations with strong chances of winning seats in the next National Assembly. In fourth place according to the polls is the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, with 7.2 per cent, and in fifth, the reformist Democratic Bulgaria, with 6.1 per cent. Sixth was former Ombudsman Maya Manolova’s political formation “Stand UP.bg”, with 4.9 per cent. Close to the four per cent threshold to win seats in Bulgaria’s National Assembly is Hristo Ivanov’s reformist Democratic Bulgaria, with 3.9 per cent. The ultra-nationalist VMRO-NFSB, currently the minority partner in Borissov’s government, has fallen further below the 4 % threshold to 2.7 per cent in last December. According to some other prognosis there are only four political formations that will certainly enter the next parliament - GERB, BSP, "There is such a people" and MRF. "Democratic Bulgaria" and "United Patriots" have a rather potential opportunity to cross the 4% barrier, but nothing is certain yet. In any case, these sociological data are rather preliminary and surprises can be expected. All political formations that are preparing for parliamentary elections are in very good condition, because they currently function in the time of economic, political and medical crisis which keeps them in high political readiness. According to experts, finally the election campaign itself will ultimately decide the winner. According to the surveys the protest vote will most clearly and permanently be robbed by Slavi Trifonov's party "There is such a people". In order to reach the majority needed for a stable parliament, at least three formations will have to agree to rule together, but from the positions of the parties at the moment it is clear that such an agreement is almost impossible for the time being. That is why it is very likely that a possible new cabinet could be declared "programmatic“ or "expert" in order to put in the background the idea of a coalition between political groups that do not agree in principle to work together. Presidential elections From the point of view of the forthcoming presidential elections set to be held in the autumn of 2021, according to opinion polls, the current president Rumen Radev is having a very high chance of being elected for a second term if he runs. It should be borne in mind that 3 presidential elections can be strongly influenced by the results of the previous parliamentary elections. One of the visible and very important factors related to the presidential election of Rumen Radev for a second term is the fact that the tension between the president and the BSP leadership is quite visible and obvious. This is due to the fact that during his mandate, gradually Rumen Radev started to play role of an independent opposition center, distancing himself from the BSP. In this regard without the support of the BSP, it may turn out that the re-election of Radev for a second term will be difficult to achieve, as usually in all presidential elections so far the runoff is always between the candidates of the two largest parties in the country. For now President Rumen Radev is the politician with the highest rating of trust and public support in Bulgaria. According to sociological agencies he is having 50.9 per cent approval and a 37.6 per cent disapproval. However, in presidential elections, there is always the possibility of sudden and surprising last-minute reversals. Conclusion The political year 2021 will be definitely extremely important for Bulgaria due to the fact that within the year two of the most important elections will be held, determining the future governance and therefore the development of the country.
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