Another sluggish election campaign is over for the seventh election in the past three years, a BGNES reports.
For the seventh time in a row goes a campaign in which not a single meaningful debate took place on the important issues for society, let alone a leadership debate in which the main players in the elections presented clear and recognisable messages.
Instead of a clear political picture, the participants in the elections presented to the public a handful of vague messages to each other, which they conveyed through the media. Whether out of fear of stepping on the wrong foot and missing their chance to participate in a possible post-election coalition, or simply because there is a total political impotence in their teams in terms of new ideas, people and policies - in these successive early parliamentary elections the players remained laconic, relying mostly on face-to-face meetings with leaders, as well as on modest events like a concert here and there. As if on purpose, party leaders avoided each other in different cities of the country, even if they had election events in adjacent halls. Campaigning this time too is mainly on social media, and it is more than obvious that there is a lack of themes, visions and even attempts to reach the voter.
So far, the only clear political news from the campaign is that probably after the elections "We continue the change" (WCC) will insist on an "equidistant prime minister" and GERB will not agree with this option, because according to GERB leader Boyko Borissov it means "heavy backroom deals".
Once again, an election campaign goes by with no surprises, no new faces and no brand new projects. A slight stir among voters is likely to bring a split in the two oldest system parties - "Movement for rights and freedoms" (DPS) and the "Bulgarian socialist party" (BSP). After a long political battle, BSP has parted ways with its long-time leader Kornelia Ninova, although she has not yet been finally dismissed from the party's plenum. The new leadership of the left - now with a new name "BSP - United Left" - has set a course to unite all the left parties, signing an agreement to run in the elections together with more than 20 of them, while Ninova is not even a candidate for MP.
DPS also split into factions. After the party's MPs refused to support a GERB cabinet with Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, 17 MPs, including the other chairman of the Movement - Dzhevdet Chakarov, were expelled from the parliamentary group of DPS, whose chairman was Delyan Peevski. Later, more people were expelled, and it turned out that the honorary chairman of the party, Dr. Ahmed Dogan, was deprived of his shares in TPP Varna, as well as his properties in Rosenets and Boyana. After numerous court appeals from one faction to the other and vice versa, supporters of both parties appear on Sunday independently as "DPS - New Beginning", and Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS). Just a touch of the electoral battle are the arrest of Dogan loyalist Ceyhan Ibryamov, and the imposition of a pre-trial detention order on long-time Kardzhali mayor and also close to Dogan Hasan Azis, who was a key figure in the APS campaign in Turkey.
Changes also occurred in the WCC, which lost the presence of Nastimir Ananiev and his party "Volt" in their coalition
In the case of "Vazrazhdane" and ITN there were no changes in the main political faces.
Several key events marked the short life of the 50th National Assembly. In addition, the institution has seen record low trust. Distrust in the National Assembly stands at 74 per cent while trust is only 6 per cent, according to the poll. The last parliament will go down in history with the fastest disintegration of the smallest and newest parliamentary group - the "Greatness" group, the largest number of non-member MPs - some of them former from the DPS, but also some expelled from the BSP. Kaloyan Metodiyev, who entered parliament as a BSP candidate, could not even take the oath as a socialist, and remained an independent from start to finish.
And the 50th National Assembly, as well as the previous ones, with great difficulties managed to elect a chairman in the person of Raya Nazarian from GERB. After that the roulette with the mandates was spun once again, and traditionally the first of them was handed to the leader of GERB Boyko Borissov as the representative of the largest parliamentary force. Borissov proposed Rosen Zhelyazkov as prime minister, but after a vote he was not elected. His candidacy was rejected with 138 votes against. The vote on the structure and composition of the Council of Ministers under Zhelyazkov's leadership never took place.
After the DPS split precisely during the vote of Zhelyazkov's government and DPS became the fourth political force, the second mandate surprisingly ended up in the hands of the WCC. The party proposed a document with anti-corruption measures and a declaration to seek support in the second mandate. The declaration, however, did not garner the necessary support, and the PP-DB returned the second mandate unfulfilled.
This time, President Rumen Radev decided on his own to give the third exploratory mandate for forming a government to "There is such a nation" (ITN), after a week earlier the party group of Slavi Trifonov had said it would seek compromise figures for a government with broad support. After ITN's public consultations with all parliamentary groups failed to achieve the desired success, ITN also returned the mandate unfulfilled.
This was followed by the formation of another caretaker government by President Radev. During the first attempt to form such a cabinet, Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva was nominated and proposed a cabinet. After she went to present her composition at the Presidency, Radev refused to sign a decree for it because of the figure of Kalin Stoyanov, nominated as caretaker interior minister. On the grounds that Stoyanov was close to Peevski, Radev refused to appoint Kozhareva's government, and it came down to the Glavchev 2 cabinet.
Already upon the appointment of the Glavchev 2 cabinet, President Rumen Radev scheduled the next early parliamentary elections for 27 October.
28 parties and 11 coalitions are registered with the CEC for Sunday's elections.
So far, the conducted operations on the territory of the country are more than 200; the received signals for violations of the electoral process are more than 400; the initiated pre-trial proceedings are nearly 100; the arrested are more than 45; nearly 1200 warning reports under the Law of the Ministry of Interior have been drawn up.
Nearly 100 million leva will cost the taxpayers this attempt of the parties to form a stable working government. In the meantime, while a new cycle will be underway with the three mandates to form a government, the state has no enacted Budget for 2025, and there is urgent work to be done on the Recovery and Sustainability Plan to ensure that hundreds of millions of leva are not lost.
Most polling agencies are again giving GERB first place in these elections, WCC and "Vazrazhdane" will fight for second place, APS and DPS-New Beginnings will also jump the barrier with almost similar results. In a group with a close result are "There is such a people" and "BSP - United Left" with a difference of less than a percentage point. In the third group of formations with similar support fall those who are closest to crossing the 4 percent barrier - that is how much the MEC party of former sports minister Radostin Vassilev collects. Closely behind with a half-point difference is "Greatness", which was the surprise of the last elections. And in this election the share of voters who indicated the "I do not support anyone" option is expected to be over 4%.
The expected turnout is between 2 million and 2 million and 200 thousand people. | BGNES
