The Bulgarian snap election of July 2021-can anti-corruption parties find a way forward?

The Bulgarian election of July 2021, called just three months after the previous Bulgarian parliamentary election due to an inability to form a viable coalition government, resulted in a triumph for There is Such a People, the key anti-corruption party, and other anti-corruption parties.

ITN (There is Such a People) narrowly finished top of the poll with 65 seats, two ahead of the governing GERB-SDS alliance which won 63, down 12 from April. The main opposition, the BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party) also suffered significant losses, losing 7 seats bringing them down to 36, which ensures no "grand coalition" can form in Bulgaria after this election. In both cases disillusionment amongst their supporters was the main reason for their losses; with only 3 months having elapsed since the last election the issues were virtually the same as in the April 2021 Bulgarian election that I analysed here: https://alansgreenthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/04/on-bulgarian-election-of-2021-oldish.html

Indirectly, the rising popularity of ITN harmed support for another key anti-corruption alliance, ISMV (Stand Up! Mafia, Get Out!), which lost a seat and was not far above the 4% threshold necessary for election with 4.95%. It had little effect on the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Party, despite its association with corruption due to its lasting support amongst ethnic minorities in Bulgaria, even though its leader Delyan Peevski was placed under US sanctions last month due to his extensive involvement with governmental corruption. That party lost only one seat, still leaving it with 29, and it becomes the de facto kingmaker in this round of governmental formation in Bulgaria. GERB-SDS and BSP won 99 seats between them, and ITN, ISMV, and the Democratic Bulgaria alliance (containing the same parties as in April) won 112 seats between them, meaning neither can form a viable coalition without the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Party giving confidence and supply. Slavi Trifonov, the leader of the ITN movement, claimed that he is seeking to run a minority government after this election, but the mathematical and political realities will mean he will have to seek coalition partners and confidence and supply in order to carry out his party's initiatives.

No parties who had not won seats in April 2021 won seats in this snap election, and of the new parties only Bulgarian Summer, who had contested the April elections as part of the Bulgarian National Unification alliance, only polled 1.8%; this is hardly surprising since three months is not enough time for any new political party to build a significant support base anywhere except in the most exceptional circumstances. True to form, it was one of those new parties, Rise, that got the wooden spoon in this set of Bulgarian elections, with just 862 votes.  Also unsurprising was the low turnout in these snap elections-reaching a new low of 40.39%, appalling even by the standards of Balkan parliamentary elections in general.

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