Bulgaria elections - 5 October 2014

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm hearing a lot of contradictory reports about coalition negotiations, at least in the English language news about Bulgaria.

It appears that the Reformist Bloc, Patriotic Front, and Alternative for Bulgarian Renewal have all either agreed to a coalition or stated their willingness to support a minority government.

Bulgaria Without Censorship has also offered support but apparently GERB doesn't want it.

Coalition talks with the BSP are still ongoing too.

The only parties that for sure won't take part in any government are Attack and the MRF.

Also, ABC/ABV, which was the first party to come out and say it would back GERB, has now back tracked and said they only really want to be part of a coalition if it's a GERB-BSP grand coalition.

[Famous Mortimer]

What do you think would happen if there was a new election?

GERB would almost certainly still win a plurality.

The MRF would probably beat the BSP for second place.

Coalition building would still be unworkable but I'm guessing people would just be tired and let GERB have a minority government.

[Beagle]

People are perfectly willing to have GERB form a minority government now - if this went to a vote in Parliament, they would get MRF, PF, BGWC and probably ABV and part of the RB to vote "for". Nobody wants a re-vote so soon, mostly because most parties have run out of cash and the donors are maxed out for the calendar year. GERB does not want to form a government where they will attacked on all sides, especially on the right.

To answer your question would be to answer who the 2-400k "missing" voters are and what they will do, and I can't do that. They were expected to overwhelmingly back GERB (certainly nobody expected GERB to have less raw votes than in 2013), drive Attack and ABV out of Parliament and cement the loss of the previous government. A new vote with the same parties would almost certainly see BGWC and probably ABV out of parliament, but that is where the positives end - turnout will probably be lower, the PF will almost certainly overtake the RB for 4th, Attack will gain votes and presumably we will see a short-lived GERB-PF (if they have the votes) or grand coalition do-nothing government.

[GMantis]

Nice to see another poster from Bulgaria! And I hope that you will come out of lurking a bit more often!

And you'd be absolutely correct. No idea where Mantis got the numbers from, but here's the breakdown for the RB - though things are obviously volatile and may change with the constitution of the parliamentary group:
DBG - 7 (from districts 4, 13, 15, 16, 25, 26, 27)
DSB - 5 (districts 3, 14, 23, 24, 25)
UDF - 4 (1, 2, 19, 23)
Freedom and Dignity - 1 (23)
BAPU - 1 (17)
Bulgarian New Democracy - 1 (12)  [a moribund Simeon party splinter, however the deputy is personally popular in Montana]

The 4 unaffiliated are from districts 23, 24 (2) and 29.

Broadly speaking, the pro-Borisov camp is composed of the DBG, UDF, BAPU and BND deputies, while DSB, FD + 3 of the 4 unaffiliated are against a coalition (to varying degrees). The 4th unaffiliated has a very tenuous connection to the RB and is expected to jump ship (probably to GERB) at some point.

From here and I see that this was wrong about the leaders of the 4th and 29th district, though the former is certainly not a member of DBG (they protested against him leading the list) and the later is the son of the leader of DSB in Haskovo, so he's at least close to them.

There are 36 parties represented in the coalitions that have entered parliament - and both GERB and the MRF have given a seat to parties that have supported them without a formal coalition agreement. The only party that has entered parliament on its own (due to the low turnout, it has to be said) is Attack, but they can also be neatly divided into the party leader's lovers and the party leader's drinking buddies. If history is any guide, there will no significant movement away from the 3 major groups, while the smaller parties will have their MPs poached. It is virtually certain that any new government will have to rely on more than 130 votes initially in order to be stable in case of defections, but it's highly likely that whatever coalition comes out, the parliament will be short lived.

I'm not quite sure about this, what with Bulgaria without Censorship being more of a handy source of extra support for GERB than a parliamentary group. And the coalition around the Patriotic Front may not survive any attempt to leave the coalition, as past experience shows...

* Since 2001 the MRF has steadily gained control over all the state agencies of most interest to the rural communities (and mismanaged them horribly, of course, but that's not the issue). Due to the CAP, if you're a land-holder above the subsistence level, you can make a decent living, provided you get access to EU funds dispersed through a MRF fiefdom intermediary. And if you're not, you'll find out that to get irrigation water, to do some illegal logging or to go hunting etc., it helps to befriend the MRF people in your village.

Surely GERB put their own people there? Of course I expect that the MRF did its best to regain its positions there over the last year.

* The MRF may come across as omnipotent, but they have lost more than a third of their votes from the high point of Dogan's power and influence in 2009.

This is one way of looking at things. Another of course is that MRF gained 20% from last year. Partly due to the decline of the Freedom and Dignity party, but probably mostly due to their renewed power in the state apparatus.

* And let's not forget the vote buying.

This, along with their appeal as a defender of minorities to the Gypsy population seems to be the main reason for the current MRF success in rural areas outside their traditional areas. I don't think that most ethnic Bulgarians there would start supporting MRF due to their stranglehold on the agencies concerned with agriculture, in fact I expect that this made them even more unpopular. And of course a strategy aimed at maximising the vote of the Gypsies is going to lose, rather than win non-minority voters. And the geography of the increased vote of the MRF seems to show exactly such a gain with Gypsies.

What do you think would happen if there was a new election?

GERB would almost certainly still win a plurality.

The MRF would probably beat the BSP for second place.

Coalition building would still be unworkable but I'm guessing people would just be tired and let GERB have a minority government.

BSP will probably gain, both from backlash against GERB for failing to form a government and due more time for them to distance themselves from the legacy of Stanishev. And ABV will probably decline, especially after seemingly supporting GERB. But probably not too much change overall.

[Beagle]

Nice to see another poster from Bulgaria! And I hope that you will come out of lurking a bit more often!

Thanks!

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Ah, when I saw DSB next to Ivan Ivanov, I thought that he was being confused for his namesake from DSB who was MP from 1997-2013. This one actually is unaffiliated with any of the Bloc's parties, so I was wrong, sorry. I was debating whether or not the unaffiliated group should not be labeled as DSB anyway (or rather 3/4's of it) - after all Karadzhov in SF-24 was personally endorsed by Kostov. I think it will be fair to say that the DSB has taken (or usurped, depending on the viewpoint) the leading position within the alliance regardless of the actual number of MP's.

But the remaining 1/4th - Stanislav Ivanov from Haskovo - is certainly not the son of Haskovo's DSB leader. He's the one with the tenuous connection to the RB, since his dad has been Haskovo's mayor since 1999, having ran as a candidate of the UDF, as independent with the endorsement of the BSP and as the head of a broad coalition of mostly corporate parties in his three elections so far. As has been widely publicized, the RB essentially sold the party line in Haskovo, where all the parties in the Bloc combined didn't clear the 4% hurdle in 2013, to Mr. Ivanov and another guy from Dimitrovgrad. The rumored arrangement was that these candidates would get 14k votes for the Bloc (which they did by hook, and judging by the vote buying convictions, crook), but would be free to go their own way if and when they enter parliament. The Bloc's supporters were supposed to be scandalized and leaving in droves, and Gospodin Tonev, a decent hard-working UDF local MP from 97 to 05, ran as an independent. End result: a six-fold increase in the RB's vote compared to the Euros, one of the lowest results in the country for "The Right", 286 votes for Tonev and GERB didn't get a particularly great result either. The voters certainly have an odd way of showing their displeasure.

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Oh, the WC itself will certainly go with the highest bidder... as long as the MRF allows them to. Actually I was also wrong about Lider's number - turns out they have 5 deputies - and in the meantime it has emerged that whatever the other people in that coalition do, Kovachki has ordered his MPs to offer unconditional support to GERB. Still, though, the math doesn't work out, even if we consider the RB and PF united behind the future government - 84+24+19+10-12 from other parties means that budget votes will always be precarious. And there certainly will not be a majority for the unpalatable, but necessary, decisions the government will have to take (ie electricity prices).

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The MRF did suffer a lot of setbacks in 2009-2010, but once they proved the accommodating opposition they were for most of the 41st Parliament, the lower echelons were largely left untouched (and many those who were fired soon got reinstated by the courts due to the absurdly onerous procedure to fire state employees).

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Without a doubt this accounts for at least 75% of their increase, probably more. But I also have the anecdotal evidence of the village of Боровци, where I have family and there are about 15 Roma in total, and where the MRF has always had 0-3 votes (0 in 2013). This time around they got 33. From what I've heard, the reasons are mainly as I stated above. And, as I'm sure you are aware, the ballot is not always exactly secret in rural polling stations, so while people may resent voting for the MRF, they still do it.

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Hm, do you think there is any truth in the rumors that Stoynev lost the leadership battle even though he was Stanishev's anointed heir because he was not as cooperative with the MRF as Mikov?

[Famous Mortimer]

Apparently Borisov wants a technocratic government until 1 June 2015 and then a new parliamentary election. June 1 is when local elections were scheduled to happen anyway.

[swl]

Several members of the EU center-right and other western partners have warned Borissov that they may reconsider their partnership with him if he allies with the Patriotic Front.

[Beagle]

So, amid a fusillade of toys thrown from assorted prams and a chorus of whines, we have somehow got ourselves a government - as predicted a month ago, it will be GERB+Reformist Bloc+Patriotic Front+Alternative for Bulgarian Revival... and maybe others. Here's how the aptly named "Coalition of the unwilling" looks right now (subject to change before being officially put to the vote on Friday):

GERB (84 seats) - Boyko Borisov will be PM, they will have 2 deputy PMs and 12 ministers - mostly those sectors that distribute EU funds, as well as Interior.

Reformist Bloc (24* seats) - 1 deputy PM and 4(+2) ministers - Foreign, Justice, Health, Defense, Economics and Education. The (+2) is because those 2 are holdovers from the caretaker government, who will stay on as RB representatives.
* We'll see for how long - one of the MPs seems to have gone out of his way to sabotage the negotiations, so his vote is far from certain.

Patriotic Front (18** seats) - technically not part of the coalition, they may yet propose some 'nonpartisan' experts who will take part in the government. At least one of the reasons why they are in is to give the MRF a plausible reason to not support the government.
** In this case the maverick MP has already stated he will not vote for any government led by Borisov. Since then he has been kicked out of the party TV channel, where he was a talkshow host, and so I'm counting him out.

Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (11 seats) - 1 minister - Social welfare. Also not part of the coalition, they seem to be entering some supply and confidence type of agreement.

Lider (6 seats) - well, nobody officially asked them to support the coalition or has negotiated with them, but it's common knowledge that they will back anything that is proposed by GERB.

Government majority: ~143/240

The opposition will be the BSP, MRF, maybe the remnants of the BGWC (or Bulgarian Democratic Center, as it's now called) and Attack (duh).

It looks like this government will pass the vote (maybe with some structural and numerical accommodations), because it's pretty clear that the only other alternative are early elections, and as I said before, most parties are flat broke. Case in point, the BSP has just had its subsidy halved due to their wretched result, however they seem to have negotiated a fixed sum that is to be shared with their 13 (13!) coalition partners - the various commies, greens and such - so they'll have to part with 1/3 of the reduced subsidy. The 13 coalition partners have 1 (1!) deputy between them - and that is a pretty accurate representation of their vote contribution within the BSP coalition.

The government is supposed to last the full 4 year term (lol, no).

I may have to say more about this later, if there is any interest.

[GMantis]

Including ABV was quite a clever move. This reduces the threat of the Patriotic Front ending the government at any time they want and gets the coalition 11 guaranteed additional deputies, since ABV certainly won't want new elections after they eliminated any chance of entering Parliament again. What's less clear is why ABV agreed to this...

The government is supposed to last the full 4 year term (lol, no).

Well the coalition has 118 deputies now (see above for why). Add the six who have already switched from Barekov's party and most of the rest who'll inevitably gravitate to the government and I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't last four years.

[Famous Mortimer]

ABV aren't a member of the coalition but they have a minister? That's just stupid. Who's the minister?

[GMantis]

ABV aren't a member of the coalition but they have a minister? That's just stupid. Who's the minister?

Ivaylo Kalfin, the BSP candidate for President in 2011, who will be Vice-Prime Minister and minister for demographical and social policy. He seems to be a example of not learning from one's mistakes: he once left the BSP to join another independent leftist party (the Euroleft) which was destroyed due to collaborating with a right-wing party and now he's done it again...

[Beagle]

I had forgotten that the procedure calls for 3 separate votes - on the person of the prime minister, on the proposed structure of the cabinet and on the proposed ministers. This has allowed for a more nuanced vote and draws the battlelines a bit clearer.

Voted 234/240. Non-voting - 1 GERB (presumably Borisov himself), 2 BSP, 3 MRF. Dunno what's up with those.

So, on Borisov becoming PM, the vote is 149 for, against 85.

FOR: All of GERB, RB, ABV and BGWC (including the one who's independent), 17/19 of the PF.

AGAINST: All of BSP, MRF, Attack and 2/19 of the PF.

The structure of the cabinet passed with 144 out of 228 voting for, 83 against and 1 abstaining
FOR: GERB, RB, PF (except 1, who abstained) and ABV, Lider (the rest of BGWC didn't vote)

AGAINST: BSP, MRF, Attack

The personnel of the government - 136 for, 97 against, 1 abstaining.

FOR: GERB, RB, PF (1 abstaining), ABV
AGAINST: BSP, MRF, Attack, BGWC

Well the coalition has 118 deputies now (see above for why). Add the six who have already switched from Barekov's party and most of the rest who'll inevitably gravitate to the government and I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't last four years.

The only scenario in which this government lasts the entire term is if GERB drops precipitously (not impossible), the RB and PF stay together (extremely unlikely), no significant splits occur around the local elections next year (no chance), the referendum on compulsory voting passes AND Borisov decides he won't run for President in 2016. The proverbial snowball's chance in hell looks far better.

[Beagle]

But the hard opposition consists only of ~88 (=BSP+MRF+ATAKA). Perhaps Borisov can keep enough balls synchronically in the air!?

I think there is an underlying assumption in your question that the Bulgarian politicians and parties care about things other than self-preservation, avarice and ego stroking; things like, you know, governing. With notable exceptions, that simply isn't true - the chief raison d'être for most of our parties is to put these guys in charge and not those guys, or, as BGWC and Attack demonstrate, to get the party leader's table, glass, garage and bed full*. To the extent there is a hard opposition to Borisov in parliament, it consists of 30-ish BSP MP's (the rest of the BSP are amenable), Siderov's drinking circle (about 5 people) and the maverick MP from the Patriotic Front. It does not follow, though, that a majority can be found for things that are unpopular. 

* Not that the two reasons are not mutually exclusive, of course

As for the juggling, yes, that's what the voters apparently voted for and that's what we're getting. A sampling of the parliamentary majorities on some major issues:

Flat tax retention (as demonstrated yesterday):
For: GERB, RB, MRF (~ 150)
Against: BSP, PF, BGWC, Attack, ABV (~ 90)

Foreign policy (this is obviously a gross simplification and does not apply to South Stream):
Pro-Western: GERB, RB, MRF, most of the BGWC (~160)
Pro-Russian: BSP, ABV, Attack (~60)
Anti-Turkey: PF (~20)

Budget (the projected shortfall for this year takes us far beyond Maastricht's criteria and EU funds will not start flowing in until mid 2015 at the earliest. I loathe the overuse of the word 'austerity', but it will do to describe the way the new budget will look):

For: GERB, RB, ABV (~ 117)
Against: BSP, MRF, Attack, parts of BGWC and PF (~ 110)
Will probably not vote, thus lowering the threshold, but will vocally oppose the budget: the rest of PF and BGWC  (~20)

Law and order (this is conjecture and I may be wrong):

For a campaign against rural criminality (mostly perpetrated by Roma): GERB, BSP, PF, BGWC and probably Attack, though they may not feel it goes far enough (~170)
Against: RB, ABV, MRF (~70)

Pension/Social Security reform - somehow a system that's designed to function with 1.5 contributors for every dependent is not doing very well with the projected 3 dependents for every contributor; a situation that is not helped by the fact that the police, military and a bunch of other professions can retire at 45:

For: Nobody!
Against: Everybody!

All in all, this is not a sustainable situation and GERB and Borisov himself stand to lose from it. Basically there are 3 broad courses of action Borisov can take, provided that EU funds start flowing in the summer of 2015:

A: Punt on every major issue, wait for the minor parties to dissolve into their petty squabbles and call early elections in the hope of winning a working majority. While the percentage for GERB will almost certainly fall, it's virtually impossible for BSP or any other party to surpass them and after the debacle of the Oresharski government BSP will not enter a coalition with MRF for at least 2 or 3 years. There are, depending on your viewpoint, between 2 and 4 parties who will not reenter parliament, so it may be possible for GERB to have more deputies with less votes.

B: Start some necessary reforms, blame the coalition partners for any unpopular measures, dump them, take the MRF's outstretched hand and govern with them and their... er... dependents from the other parties without new elections. For a million reasons, this will be a disaster for GERB's long term future, but it may be an attractive option for the short term. Presumably would mean that Borisov will run for President in 2016 with MRF's implicit or explicit support, while GERB itself will founder.

C: Start a co-option campaign like in the 2009-2013 parliament, get another 40-ish deputies to vote with GERB by bribes, appointments, threats etc. and rule unilaterally. Would be a fairly expensive proposition and frankly would not achieve much.

So far it seems he's going for option A, but he may yet choose another option.

TL:DR - The present government, in this configuration, is doomed. The further explanation will be too arcane, byzantine and/or conspiracy theorish, so I think I'll leave it here.

[Famous Mortimer]

Did the Reformist Bloc ever have their leadership election?

[Beagle]

Did the Reformist Bloc ever have their leadership election?

No. It's unlikely a leadership election can take place within the RB as a whole, but since there are many people pushing for one (mostly DSB within the RB, and from the outside and for rather different reasons - GERB), a convention is tentatively penciled in for February. How many of the parties in the RB would take part in such an election is anyone's guess.

In other news, the MRF has just expelled 2 MPs who got elected by preferential vote over their higher ranked party colleagues. These 2 supposedly violated a 'gentleman's agreement' that they should step down. Unlike the other potential deputies who got elected because of the ballot design* and didn't take their seats, both of the new independents had campaigned for the preferential vote, invested a fair amount of money for buying votes the campaign and their list numbers didn't match the MRF's number. Nobody had heard of this gentleman's agreement prior to today and this expulsion came as a bolt from the blue. The two MPs have not commented publicly since they were cast off.

* Quite a lot of people were confused by the fact that there are two sets of numbered boxes to mark - one for the parties and one for the candidates within the chosen party's list - and so voted with the same number in both boxes to be on the safe side.

This happens against a backdrop of a lot of noise from the PF that they will withdraw their support from the cabinet because of the appointment of an ethnic Turk from the RB Freedom and Dignity party as deputy minister. IMO this PF puffing of feathers is mostly posturing, but, in any case, as of today GERB, RB and ABV hold 118 seats, while the opposition and the PF have 119 together. The ex-BGWC independent is a government supporter as well, so if the two newly minted independents turn out to, well, share a common vision with Borisov, he will be able to govern without the support both of the PF and (ostensibly) the MRF.

  

[Famous Mortimer]

As always, thanks for the long, detailed responses. Since you don't seem to mind writing them, could you expand on the BSP leadership race you mentioned?

Mikov wasn't backed by Stanishev? Who was he backed by then? Also, if there was an anti-Stanishev opening, why didn't Parvanov try to take advantage of it? Just dumb?

[Beagle]

Since you don't seem to mind writing them...

Oh, but I do. If I had more time, I would have written shorter responses.

Mikov wasn't backed by Stanishev?

Note - Stanishev and his wife are absolutely reviled by everyone I talk politics with, regardless of ideology. I personally have voted for the BSP only once in my life, and that was the 2005 runoff for Sofia mayor against Borisov. Take what I write with an appropriate dosage of salt.

Stoynev was handpicked by Stanishev as his successor for the same reasons Parvanov handpicked Stanishev 14 years ago - in order to be the power behind the throne of а young, inexperienced and generally unknown leader, who is not and presumably can not possibly be personally popular. Stoynev had been the stalking horse Parvanov chose to run against Stanishev in 2012, so getting him to switch sides was a personal triumph for Stanishev. Also, during his time as economics minister, Stoynev didn't try to make any personal appointments*, and duly filled all the important positions with those suggested to him by BSP and MRF... or to be more precise, those suggested by Monica Stanisheva and Delyan Peevski. Replicating this as BSP leader would suit Stanishev just fine.

* mostly on account of his not having any friends, but that's neither here nor there.

Who was he backed by then?

Mikov is the quintessential compromise candidate. Stanishev had groomed him for his successor prior to Stoynev switching sides. He's been in Parliament since 1997 and nobody can remember one major bill or amendment he introduced, nor has he ever strayed from the party line, but by all accounts he's terrific fun to be around when drunk (and he's not sober too often). Unusually for Bulgaria, he's been attentive to the needs of his constituency. Mikov is also one of the very few people who can appeal both to the nostalgic base of the party and the pro-oligarch leadership.

But let's make this absolutely clear: none of the above would have mattered if Stanishev hadn't been as forceful in trying to push Stoynev through - and *possibly* if Stoynev hadn't refused to play along with the MRF after they announced they were going to withdraw their support from the government. Mikov, on the other hand, was one of the very few BSP politicians who still talked to the MRF at that point - he's never refused to talk to anyone.

To answer the question, the most important support Mikov got apart from his own Northwestern base, was that by the éminence grise of the BSP for the past 10 years, Dimitar Dabov. Dabov has since been fired by Mikov, but I don't know if that was for show only or whether Mikov has taken the reins in his own hand. In any case, Mikov is not stupid.

Also, if there was an anti-Stanishev opening, why didn't Parvanov try to take advantage of it? Just dumb?

Two things: the BSP leader is elected by the delegates at a party conference. The delegates are chosen by the local baron oligarch fee paying party members by "secret" ballot. Most of the party leaders either owed their rise to Stanishev or had a lot to lose by openly rebeling and nominating pro-Parvanov delegates. Secondly, Parvanov had formed ABV just two months prior and thus his most loyal people were out of the BSP already. People couldn't very well slink back and try to get themselves to the party conference after staking their claim outside of the BSP just a couple of weeks prior.

Still, both Cornelia Ninova (who placed a surprisingly close 3rd in the first round of balloting at the conference) and Maya Manolova were thought to be open to a Parvanov reconciliation. Had it been known that Ninova was this close to the runoff, I think there may have been a prodigal son or two returning prior to the vote. A Ninova-led BSP would in all likelihood be one where Parvanov would have a lot of influence and strings to pull.

[Famous Mortimer]

So who did you vote for in the election?

[Beagle]

Dyed in the wool RB voter. Not a big fan of any of the constituent parties or party leaders, but the people I trust in Bulgarian politics are almost all in the RB and it's the only non-joke party to even suggest solutions to some of our biggest problems.