Elections bulgares : le centre droit balaye ses opposants[en] 

For the last four years, Bulgaria has been governed by a rather stable tripartite coalition, comprising the Bulgarian Socialist party, which won the poll in 2005 with 31% of the vote, and two liberal-affiliated parties: NDSV, which then obtained 19.9%, and the Movement of Rights and Freedoms, who at that time got 12.8%. 

EU elections took place in Bulgaria on 7 June, less than a month ahead of the parliamentary elections, which are due to renew the 240-seat one-chamber parliament. 

The EU poll showed that the political landscape in Bulgaria had changed over the last four years. The elections were won by a new political player – the centre-right Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), a political project built around the personality of Boyko Borrissov, current mayor of Sofia. GERB obtained 24.36% of the vote and five out of the 17 MEP seats allocated to Bulgaria. 

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)  obtained 18.5% and will send five MEPs to Strasbourg. 

Next in the ranking was the Movement of Rights and Freedoms (DPS), primarily an ethnic Turkish party, which obtained 14.14% and three MEPs, followed by Ataka ('Attack'), a nationalist party, which obtained 11.96% and two MEPs. 

NDSV, a political movement launched in 2001 by Simeon Saxe-Cobourg Gotha, ranked fourth in the EU poll, apparently thanks to the popularity of Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria's commissioner, who headed the party's list. NDSV obtained 7.96% and two MEP seats. NDSV stands for 'Simeon the Second National Movement', but the movement was recently renamed the 'National Movement for Stability and Progress', keeping the same acronym. 

The 'Blue Coalition' ranked fifth with 7.95% and obtained one MEP seat. This new player represents a coalition between the former anti-Communist Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) and its rival party Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB), the latter built around the personality of former Prime Minister Ivan Kostov (1997-2001). The relationship between these two parties is complex and they have weakened each other with internal in-fighting. 

Closest to cross the 5% threshold for the EU poll came 'Order, Law and Justice' (RZS), a recently-established maverick party with a populist anti-corruption platform built around the personality of Yane Yanev, a former Agrarian Party leader. 

Boyko Borrisov, the mayor of Sofia who is also GERB's leader, is poised to become prime minister for a new centre-right coalition following the weekend poll. 

With 99.88% of the ballot counted, GERB won 39.82% of the vote in parliamentary elections. GERB will have 116 MPs in the 240-seat parliament. 

The Bulgarian Socialist Party, led by outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, was second with 17.86%, followed by its coalition partner, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), with 14.19%. 

Ultra-nationalist party Ataka was fourth with 9.38% and the centre-right 'Blue Coalition' won 6.73%. The Order, Law and Justice Party won enough votes to enter parliament, with 4.18%. 

The National Movement for Stability and Progress (NDSV), the third partner in the ruling coalition, only got 3.23% and will not enter parliament. The threshold for parliamentary representation in Bulgaria is 4%. 

Borissov's party is expected to forge a coalition with the so-called 'Blue Coalition', a group of battered politicians from the post-1989 anti-Communist forces, or with the Order, Law and Justice Party, analysts said. 

GERB is also poised to take 28 of the 31 'individual' seats in the 240-member parliament, a novelty in Bulgarian politics as voters were called to cast a ballot for party lists as well as individual candidates for the first time. 

High turnout 

The turnout of over 60.2% was much higher than the 43% in the European elections held last month. At the 2005 parliamentary elections, turnout was 55.8%. 

Fireman and former bodyguard 

Borrisov is often portrayed as the 'saviour of the country', a status which often gives its holder the reigns of power. In a similar way, Bulgarians voted massively for Simeon Saxe-Cobourg Gotha, the infant king of Bulgaria from 1943 to 1946, who returned in 2001 and promised them a bright future. At that time, NDSV obtained 42.7% and 119 seats in Parliament. 

Borrisov is seen as a 'self-made man'. A fireman by trade and a karate expert, in the early 1990s he founded his own firm, Ipon, providing security services to VIPs. A famous client of his was former Communist leader Todor Zhivkov, who was then under home arrest. Borissov kept good personal relations with Zhivkov until his death in 1998, and repeatedly said he had "learned a lot" from him. 

Later, he provided security services free of charge to Simeon Saxe-Cobourg Gotha after his return to Bulgaria from exile. A few months later, Simeon, in his new capacity as prime minister, appointed Borissov as chief secretary in the Interior Ministry. 

In this position, Borissov became a hero of the Bulgarian media, fighting crime and calling reporters at crime scene locations himself via mobile phone. Some claimed that by bringing journalists before the investigators, evidence had been destroyed. Nevertheless, Borissov became extremely popular at that time. 

Ever since, this popularity has only grown, and so has the collection of jokes in which he is depicted as Superman. 

Borissov speaks no foreign languages, but uses the 'language of the streets', much to the delight of an audience disgusted by the artificial speech of the mainstream political class. 

Borissov shares his private life with Tzvetelina Borisslavova, the daughter of a modest embassy employee, who later became president of the advisory council of SiBank, part of the KBC group, and now owns a considerable personal fortune. 

Ethnic Turkish leader 'shocks with arrogance'

Arrogant remarks made during the campaign by the leader of the mainly ethnic Turkish party DPS Ahmed Dogan motivated the "passive electorate" to vote this time, analysts said. During the campaign, Dogan said that it was him who was in fact ruling the country, and also indicated that he was able to channel EU funds to friends, in return for political support. 

Indeed, DPS is widely perceived as corrupt. However, media reports have almost never triggered legal inquiries, nurturing suspicions that coalition members were turning a blind eye to their partners' misbehaviour. 

The statements by Dogan unleashed a series of angry comments on social-networking websites, and also in the press. But the outrage did not penalise the Turkish ethnic party. As BSP spokesperson Kornelia Ninova said, "the anti-DPS sentiments in fact became an anti-BSP vote". 

Last December, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso warned Socialist Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev that the EU executive would not tolerate "politics being played" with EU funds in the country (EurActiv 19/12/08). At that time, a Commission spokesperson declined to elaborate upon whether Barroso was referring to DPS, which is widely suspected of redistributing EU funds and projects in party circles. 

Vote buying 

Vote-buying is a phenomenon already remarked upon by the European Commission in its reports (see EurActiv Links Dossier on the EU elections in Bulgaria). However, this campaign was marked with an unprecedented level of reported vote-buying and vote-rigging revealed by the media, feebly countered by law-enforcement authorities. 

In many locations, vulnerable ethnic groups such as the Roma were reportedly paid sums to cast their vote for a certain candidate. Many Roma representatives openly said that they would vote for whoever was willing to "sponsor" their citizen's act. 

In some smaller locations, voters were told that they would lose their jobs if a certain political party did not win locally. 

Reports also abound of 'voting tourism', whereby voters repeatedly vote in several locations. Tens of thousands of Bulgarian citizens in Turkey were able to vote in 131 sections of that country, prompting suspicions of multiple voting. 

Outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev blamed the economic slowdown and heightening ethnic tension for the poor showing of his Socialist party in the 5 July general elections, Sofia Echo reported. 

"The fatigue from the current government was seen at the European Parliament elections in June," a straight-faced Stanishev told the post-elections news conference. "Several factors contributed to the dramatic change in public opinion." 

The economic slowdown was one of those reasons, Stanishev said, but defended the track record of his cabinet in fighting the effects of the financial crisis. 

Another factor was the heightened ethnic tension and the predominance of messages against ruling coalition partner Movement for Rights and Freedoms, supported mainly by ethnic Turk and Muslim voters, as well as rising fears that a political stalemate could cause early elections, Stanishev added. 

The biggest change brought by Bulgaria's 2009 parliamentary elections was that so many people decided to vote, political scientist Ivan Krastev told the Sofia Echo. 

Before the elections, the popular notion was that Bulgarians were so disgusted with politics that they did not believe in elections, but these elections showed that this was not the case, argues Krastev. 

"For me, the biggest loser, and I am very happy about it, is the idea of using dirty political games, that people can be fooled." 

The result of this was that the Bulgarian Socialist Party had lost, as had Ahmed Dogan's Movement for Rights and Freedoms. People had turned out to vote against Dogan's party, not because they did not want Turks in government, but because they would not allow the thinking that a political force could not be sanctioned by voters, the analyst said. 

Voters had punished Dogan's arrogance in believing that "no matter what, Bulgarian government cannot happen without us," Krastev explained. 

The biggest challenge that Boiko Borissov's GERB now faced was the integration of the Muslim community, he added. A coalition between GERB and the 'Blue Coalition' would be a stable one for one simple reason - the 'Blue Coalition' has no one else with whom they could possibly serve in coalition, Krastev concluded.