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Bulgaria Political Briefing: Overview of the Political 2020 Year for Bulgaria Evgeniy Kandilarov

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Bulgaria Political Briefing: Overview of the Political 2020 Year for Bulgaria Evgeniy Kandilarov ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 35, No. 1 (BG) December 2020 Bulgaria political briefing: Overview of the Political 2020 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 Overview of the Political 2020 year for Bulgaria The political year 2020 for Bulgaria was extremely tense and complicated. It was filled with many political scandals, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary clashes and struggles, “wars” between institutions, civil protests, etc. All this happened in an extremely severe and serious health, social and economic crisis, which further increased political tensions and led to almost complete collapse of citizens' trust in the main state institutions and the democratic political process in general. At the very beginning of the year, a scandal broke out between Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev who released wiretaps, which were supposed to prove that the President Radev might be involved in criminal activity, thwarting the provision of information to the investigating authorities by invoking his immunity. Political tensions peaked when on February 4 Speaking at a specially-arrange address broadcast live on television, President Radev said that Bulgaria was witnessing a grave crisis of governance at all levels. During this formal address to the people the President strongly criticized government accusing it in lack of will for fight against corruption and in continues violation of law and morality that led Bulgaria to paralysis of entire public systems and institutions with no analogue in the contemporary Bulgarian history. So at the end of his speech the President announced that he officially withdraws his trust from the cabinet of Boiko Borisov. According to the Head of State, the Council of Ministers does not work for the benefit and interest of the people in Bulgaria, even on the contrary - it implements reforms quietly without informing the people about the consequences. Political tensions between the institutions have intensified since the break of the global pandemic. For the first time in Bulgarian modern history, a State of Emergency has been voted into effect. The vote was approved unanimously by Parliament on March 13, at the proposal of the government, to enable augmented responses to Covid-19 new coronavirus. The emergency measures have further increased political tensions in the country. There was again a direct confrontation between President Rumen Radev and the government over sharp criticism from the president that the government violated human rights and sought to establish a kind of authoritarian dictatorship regime by violation of the democratic principles and restricting democratic freedoms. Over the last two weeks of April, political tensions in Bulgaria have increased in regard to the growing negative socio-economic impact of the global pandemic. The government's 1 actions have provoked sharp criticism from the Parliamentarian opposition as well escalating to strong accusations made mainly by the Bulgarian Socialist Party toward Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. The reason for this was the refusal of the Prime Minister to face the parliament and answer the opposition's questions related to the government's actions related with the coronavirus crisis. This gave the opposition additional reasons to accuse the government that it is destroying the parliamentarian order and is slowly approaching the establishment of a dictatorship. With the end of the state of emergency in June and with the intensification of the negative socio-economic effects of the pandemic, the political tensions between the opposition and the ruling parties in the country increased enormously. New stage of the internal political crises in the state was triggered by the outbreak of a new, even bigger political scandal. Audio recordings, photos and video were anonymously sent to the media in June and July. They showed a pistol, gold bars and bundles of 500-euro banknotes in the prime minister’s nightstand in his bedroom. In order to defend himself then, Borissov gave a press conference convincing the audience that it was a falsification and compromising matter done by someone who wants to discredits him. Regardless the authenticity of all the compromising materials against Bulgarian Prime Minister this scandal totally undermined the trust in politicians and the political system in Bulgaria and gave the start of the biggest civil protest wave in the country since 2013-2014. For 116 days hundreds of thousands Bulgarians have been protesting every day in Sofia and many other cities around the country demanding the resignations of the government and of chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev. Nearly four months of anti-government protests have eroded public support for the centre-right GERB government of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. The opinion polls are showing deepening political fragmentation amid concerns over corruption. However Borrisov has refused to step down until regular elections next March, saying the European Union's poorest country cannot afford political "chaos" ahead of a looming coronavirus economic crisis. No matter that the protest movement failed to achieve its explicit goals - the resignation of the government and the chief prosecutor – it surely changed the political climate in Bulgaria and increased public criticism of the government significantly. In addition, the protest movement managed to achieve several goals, which proved its effectiveness. However the government has made a number of personnel changes and it has undoubtedly become more careful in its actions since it realized that any mistake could give new impetus to the protests. 2 However, one of the most important consequences of the political scandals and the wave of protests is that the new political situation in the country has led to an essential decline in support of the two main political parties - GERB and BSP. Throughout the year the main opposition political force - the Bulgarian Socialist Party – experienced a serious internal party crisis. From one hand the socialist party was blamed by part of the society for not seeking the consent with the government and not fully supporting it in the fight against the virus and the consequences from the pandemic. Another part of the society was accusing BSP for not imposing an alternative measures to the wrong policies of the same government. In the internal party plan BSP went through a serious disintegration processes. An internal division is being formed in the party, as some of the party members declare themselves against the current chairman Kornelia Ninova. The internal party struggles were very intensive, which weakened the party's public position and give the impression of weakness and division. Meanwhile on September 12th Kornelia Ninova has won re-election as leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. This was the first direct election for chairperson of the Party with the votes of all party members. Until that time the leader of the party has being elected by the leadership body. Soon after that six members of Parliament have quitted the parliamentary group of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. The six include two of Ninova’s defeated rivals in the party leadership election. All except one also resigned from their membership of the BSP. Undoubtedly, the sharp criticism to the leadership of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the split of the party's parliamentary group are signs of a serious internal party political crisis of confidence, which could lead to a decrease in the number of voters for the party in the next parliamentary elections or a scattering of votes to other political formations in the left political space. This threatens to reduce the opposition strength of the BSP in the next parliament and, in general, to permanently weaken the presence and influence of left-wing political ideas in the future parliament of the country. Meanwhile, new political formations were registered during the year, which will run in the race for the next parliament, and it appears that they will possibly be able to gain some public support. One of these formations is the newly registered party of the TV showman Slavi Trifonov "There are such a people". According to electoral polls it reaches 8.6% of all eligible voters. The main claims of this party are for reducing the number of members in the National Assembly (from 240 to 120) and for implementing some aspects of direct democracy, including direct elections of many public positions. 3 Another newly established political party is the one headed by the former closest and most trusted person of the leader of the GERB (Boyko Borisov) and deputy chairman of the party - Tsvetan Tsvetanov. On August 27th the former second most important person in GERB organized a founding meeting of a new political party called "Republicans for Bulgaria". The new party is announced to be a centre-right and is also going to run for the next parliamentary elections. Despite the emergence of some new political players, the overall situation in the country does not envisage any radical political change, mainly due to the apparent lack of any significant political alternative. The 2020 year was very important for Bulgarian political life, mostly for one reason only. This is the upcoming parliamentary elections to be held in 2021. Therefore, for all main political forces in the country that have the ambition to participate in the next government, the development of the political situation is crucial. The starting positions of the major political players in Bulgaria have undergone a significant change during the year as a result of the emergency situation. However still very serious changes could occur by the spring of 2021, when the elections are scheduled. The government of the Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is inevitably worrying about how the ruling GERB party and the prime minister personally will emerge from the continuous political crisis that took place during the almost whole 2020.
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