On the Bulgarian election of 2021: The old(ish) order must end

The Bulgarian election of 4th April resulted first and foremost a remarkable breakthrough for parties specifically dedicated to tackling corruption in Bulgaria, especially political corruption which accounts for, among other things, the dreadful turnout levels at election time in spite of list-PR being used.

GERB ("Coat of arms" in Bulgarian), the main conservative party of Bulgaria, won along with its main ally SDS only 75 seats despite finishing first, and this loss of 20 seats gives it its worst ever result; they also managed only 25.8% of the vote. Like many conservative parties in Eastern Europe, GERB has been involved in many corruption scandals, not to mention stifling of the media by Boyko Borisov & co and misuse of EU development funds in what is one of Europe's poorest countries. The main social-democratic alliance, BSzP (Coalition for Bulgaria, led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party) fared even worse in this election-it lost 37 seats bringing it down to 43 and more importantly finished third overall, the first time such a coalition has finished third in Bulgaria for 20 years. It only topped the poll in one province, Yambol.

Two anti-corruption populist parties made a key breakthrough in this election. The more successful was ITN (There is Such a People, named after a Bulgarian pop song by its leader, Slavi Trifonov), which also placed halving the size of the National Assembly, compulsory voting and direct democracy at regional level in its platform. ITN won 51 seats and 17.4% of the vote, and it would have won more had not another anti-corruption party, ISMV (Stand Up! Mafia, Get Out!), a coalition comprising key players in the anti-government protests in Bulgaria of last year, polled 4.65% and won 14 seats, with those seats going to such parties as the soft Eurosceptic and ruralist Agrarian People's Union and the Eurofederalist Volt Bulgaria, two parties that would never otherwise go into an electoral alliance with each other. The other entrant to the Bulgarian National Assembly was the DB (Democratic Bulgaria) coalition, which comprises the centrist pro-European Yes, Bulgaria! party, the conservative Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, and the Green Movement, three very disparate groups which show that when it comes to opposing the establishment, alliances can win over all sorts of political activists, and with a wide enough remit that would put Beppe Grillo's famous Five Star Movement to shame. DB won 27 seats and 9.31% of the vote, more than treble the vote share that alliance polled in 2017. This importantly means that Greens will be represented in the Bulgarian parliament, at a time when green political representation is needed around the world more than ever before. Meanwhile, the Movement for Rights & Freedoms (DPS), a liberal party with a focus on representing minority groups in Bulgaria, came just ahead of DB with 30 seats, an increase of 4. It is nevertheless an important increase considering the fact that Bulgarian Turks, whom the DPS has a lot of support from, are according to recent statistics on average four times less likely to hold a degree and four times more likely to live below the poverty line than native Bulgarians. 

Bulgaria's hardline nationalist and extremist parties were soundly rejected at the polls. The IMRO (Bulgarian National Movement, Patriotic Coalition (comprising Volya, Bulgaria's closest answer to UKIP, and and the similar NFSB), and Attack all lost of all of their seats; in IMRO's case a less hardline splinter group called Revival split its vote enough to eliminate IMRO from the Bulgarian National Assembly. Revival polled 2.41% whilst IMRO polled 3.59%, not far below the 4% electoral threshold. The neo-Nazi Bulgarian National Union finished fifth from bottom in the poll with a pathetic 0.09%.  It is clear that the anti-government protests have also raised greater awareness of the need to tackle racism and antiziganism in Bulgaria.

Of the parties which did not clear the 4% threshold, the Bulgarian National Unification party polled best with 2.91%. The only green party that did not join a Bulgarian electoral alliance, the Greens of Bulgaria, could only muster 0.17%. Increasingly it is compulsory for small parties in Bulgaria to join alliances if they want any seats whatsoever, although the higher electoral threshold of 7% for alliances means they have to choose carefully, and even the largest parties in Bulgaria rely on an alliance with at least one other party. The wooden spoon award of this election went to a party simply called Nation, which polled just 897 votes.

Turnout dropped to 49.1%, despite the chance for an anti-establishment coalition to take power, partly due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic but mainly of general distrust for politicians in Bulgaria. 49.1% is the lowest turnout recorded in a Bulgarian election since the end of communist rule in 1989, although the elections of the 2010s never recorded turnout levels above 55%. An ITN-led coalition is theoretically possible given that GERB-SDS and BSzP between them only managed 118 seats out of 240, but whether the alliances of new and newish parties, many with conflicting ideological positions, can unite to remove Mr Borisov from office is still in question.