Bulgarian Parliamentary Election, 26 March 2017
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Author Topic: Bulgarian Parliamentary Election, 26 March 2017  (Read 7658 times)
Beagle
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« Reply #25 on: March 26, 2017, 10:07:09 AM »
« edited: March 26, 2017, 10:11:09 AM by Beagle »

Yeah, you're right. There is also the ancestral communist/anticommunist tribal division, which results in some rather counter-intuitive voting patterns. It would be wrong to say that ideology plays no role in Bulgaria's politics, however. And the ethnic identity factor is, well, debatable, but this debate is something that I don't have time for - I said that I am not writing 6000 words on corruption in my first post in this thread.
Could you elaborate on this?
It's rather straightforward, really - many, if not most, Bulgarians identify either as 'communist*' or as 'anticommunist' based on their family's 1944-1989 experience (and for a substantial part of the 'communist' camp - of their family's experience post-1989 too). That is not to say that there are no defections, but for many people voting either for or against the BSP - as the successor of the communist party - forms the entirety of their political identity.

* communist in the sense of belonging to the Bulgarian Communist Party

Turnout as of 17:00 is hovering around the 43% range - a couple of percentage points lower than the 2016 presidentials, but a couple of percentage points higher than the two previous parliamentary election in 2014 and in 2013. The abstention in Sofia is particularly noteworthy - all 3 Sofia districts are running at least 4 to 5% behind where they were at this time last year. This is probably a good sign for the BSP.

Leaked exit polls as of 16:30:

GERB: 33.2/31.5
BSP: 27.8/28.8
UP: 9.3/9
DPS: 8.7/8.6
Volya: 5/4.4
RB: 4.2/3.5
Yes Bulgaria: 3.0/3.3
DOST: 2.0/3.0
New Republic: 2.8/2.4
ABV/,m21: 2.5/2.3

Surprisingly, if you've been reading the pro-government/DPS press, there has been no horde of Turks invading our borders to vote for DOST. However, lines at the polling places in Turkey are huge and 'electoral tourism' has been reported... in Germany, where busloads of Bulgarian Turks living there have showed up at polling places. Of course, those 3-400 votes are unlikely to have any effect on the result, but is a noteworthy innovation.

Edit: Now I see that the electoral commission has published an aggregated turnout report, which pins it at 40.88%, mirroring the two previous parliamentary elections exactly. With the weather taking a turn for the worse, it is unlikely to improve.
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RogueBeaver
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« Reply #26 on: March 26, 2017, 12:24:59 PM »
« Edited: March 26, 2017, 01:17:34 PM by RogueBeaver »

Exits all show 32/28 GERB lead.

Seat projection: 87 GERB, 76 BSP.
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Mike88
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« Reply #27 on: March 26, 2017, 01:24:38 PM »

What kind of coalitions can be formed with GERB? Or can BSP form a government even though they placed second?
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Beagle
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« Reply #28 on: March 26, 2017, 01:36:37 PM »


Indeed they do. The turnout looks to be like I predicted earlier - a couple of points higher than the previous parliamentary elections, a point lower than the presidential election.

GERB: 31.8 to 32.8
BSP: 28 to 29
DPS: 7.7-9.5
UP: 8.5-9.5
Volya: 4.6-5.1
RB: 3.8-4.2
Yes Bulgaria: 2.9-3.6
Dost: 2.7-2.8
New Republic - 2.6-3
ABV/,m21 - 2.4-2.6
NONE OF THE ABOVE - 2.5

Of course, we don't even have the parallel count yet, but tomorrow's papers will look something like this:

Winners: GERB, who have scored a much clearer win than expected; DPS, who have against all expectations retained their traditional 3rd place and much of their votes; Dost, who may yet get over 3% when the votes from abroad are tallied

Losers: United Patriots, who have underperformed massively and apparently will have at least 4-5 less MPs than the previous parliament - a significant surprise, considering the election backdrop and their presidential result; the 'Old Right', for obvious reasons; to a lesser extent - Volya, who have lost a lot of their early support to GERB and BSP.

BSP are obviously disappointed, but they will probably have doubled the number of their MPs from 2014.

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GMantis
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« Reply #29 on: March 26, 2017, 02:22:09 PM »
« Edited: March 26, 2017, 04:24:37 PM by GMantis »

Great work again Beagle. Some comments:


GERB (leader: Boyko Borisov, 2014: 33%, 84 MPs, 2016: 22%): The Fidesz-isation of the party continues unabated. After the loss in the Presidential, the intra-party civil war has simmered down, but from the party lists it is fairly obvious that the modernizing Western-style faction has lost.
I question how effective that fraction ever was, considering that Borisov never really cared about that, except for carrying out the orders he got from the EU.

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Looking  at the results, this doesn't seem to have been important. It seems that most GERB voters could not care less about who was in the lists as long as Borisov is leading the party.

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I don't quite agree. The attitude in the EU is currently especially hostile to far-right parties. While they will almost certainly support the governing coalition, their reward will have to be an under the table deal rather than openly.

New Republic (leader: Radan Kanev)

A new project designed to give the disenchanted urban professionals, who were at the forefront of the 2013-14 protests against the Oresharski government, somebody to vote for after GERB+RB failed to pass any significant reforms and collaborated with the oligarchy. Despite their rather extensive platform and despite (or rather because of) their uncompromising attitude, it feels more like the leader’s ego trip than an actual attempt to govern Bulgaria. Radan Kanev, who is a rather abrasive character, is feuding with Borisov and his former RB colleagues, so the entire campaign is based on the idea that the BSP+DPS on the one hand, and GERB+RB Mk.2 on the other, are two sides of the same coin **** [/size].
**** [/size] So you don’t get the wrong impression – all other parties are also sides of that coin. It must be a rather oddly shaped coin.
If this is sincere, this would be unprecedented for the Old Right, who's main concern since 2001 has been keeping out the "Communists" beyond any other concern.


Chances of being in parliament: None. After the DPS split, their friends from the nationalist parties hurriedly passed a law limiting voting precincts for Bulgarians abroad to 35 per country (after some protests, it changed to 35 per non-EU country). If this (likely unconstitutional) limit wasn’t in place, it would have been quite possible for DOST to pass the threshold on the votes from Turkey alone. With the DPS intimidating (or worse) the DOST people in Bulgaria and with the caretaker Interior minister cracking down on DOST vote buying (but not on DPS vote buying), they will not be able to gather the needed votes from within the country.
I'll defer to your greater knowledge, but why is it unconstitutional?
Of course, if the government wanted really to crack down to DOST, they would have banned them as obviously unconstitutional.


It's rather straightforward, really - many, if not most, Bulgarians identify either as 'communist*' or as 'anticommunist' based on their family's 1944-1989 experience (and for a substantial part of the 'communist' camp - of their family's experience post-1989 too). That is not to say that there are no defections, but for many people voting either for or against the BSP - as the successor of the communist party - forms the entirety of their political identity.

* communist in the sense of belonging to the Bulgarian Communist Party
Sorry, but this doesn't really make sense. Considering that nearly every poll on the question shows that the majority of Bulgarians have a positive opinion of the Communist period, BSP should be doing a lot better than they actually do. So this can't be such an important factor. If you mean that the tribal division was only between actual communists and anti-communists (meaning people who were repressed by the regime or were actually opponents during its existence), it would again affect a relatively minor part of the Bulgarian electorate, considering that the former was never more than 15% of the population and the later was probably was smaller than that.






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Sozialliberal
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« Reply #30 on: March 26, 2017, 02:30:33 PM »

The VoteMatch/who-should-I-vote-for questionnaire is now fully active, with 19 of the 21 parties/coalitions submitting their positions - and the two parties not included are irrelevant anyway. P

I'm a bit late to the party, but here are my top 5:

1 WHO - Bulgarian Left and Green Party
2 BSP for Bulgaria
3 Movement for Radical Change "Bulgarian Spring"
4 DOST (lol)
5 PP - Movement "Forward, Bulgaria"

That sounds about right. While I'm a moderate in Germany, I'd be a left-winger in Bulgaria.
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Beagle
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« Reply #31 on: March 26, 2017, 02:34:45 PM »
« Edited: March 26, 2017, 02:36:29 PM by Beagle »

What kind of coalitions can be formed with GERB? Or can BSP form a government even though they placed second?

On the basis of the parallel counts, the RB falls below the threshold. This allows GERB quite a bit more flexibility in coalition building. Crucially, this means that they get around 95 out the 240 MPs, so in the likeliest scenario (by far) of a coalition with United Patriots and Volya, they can be safe in knowing that even when the UP coalition falls apart - as it inevitably will - they should still be able to get to 121 with Volya and the NFSB people. It will be a paper thin majority, of course, but the dominant GERB faction will also have DPS's support on many issues. I imagine that the first test will be the new electoral system (single member districts), which will probably pass with GERB, DPS and Volya support.

Of course, RB, Dost and (to a much lesser extent) Yes Bulgaria can still pass the threshold, which would scramble the coalition building. Still, at this point I'd say there's at least a 70% chance of a GERB-UP-Volya coalition.

A formal coalition between GERB and DPS is out of the question. A grand coalition (which would start off with 6 (six)% approval rate, according to polls) is also impossible. There is a small chance of a GERB minority government (with or without Volya), a minimal possibility for a "national salvation" government composed of all parliamentary parties and, in my estimate, about a 10-15% chance that government is not formed and we go to the polls again in 3-5 months.

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Beagle
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« Reply #32 on: March 26, 2017, 04:05:12 PM »

With the parallel counts completed and with a smattering of reports from actual polling places, it must be noted that Volya is teetering precariously closely to the 4% threshold. If the voting abroad goes badly for them, as expected, it is not impossible that they will fall out. Conversely, Dost still can hope that a strong result from the overseas vote can bring them above 4% - they will have just under 100k votes from Bulgaria and if they can manage more than 30% from elsewhere, they'll probably get in. The problem, of course, is that at best he'll get 30k votes from Turkey, which will not suffice.

GMantis, nice to hear from you! Are you doing a results by municipality map this time around? I will try to reply to the issues you raised tomorrow.


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GMantis
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« Reply #33 on: March 26, 2017, 04:16:38 PM »

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I will need the final results in tabular form, which might take a week. Which reminds me that I still haven't made the maps of the presidential elections and referendums...
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Beagle
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« Reply #34 on: March 26, 2017, 04:29:49 PM »

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I will need the final results in tabular form, which might take a week. Which reminds me that I still haven't made the maps of the presidential elections and referendums...


The new format of the electoral commission's result page should make it easier. And as to the presidentials, I guess the second round map will be rather easy to do, haha. Tsacheva ended up losing Dospat municipality by 5 votes instead of winning by 7 (or thereabout), but she picked up a couple of random Shumen region municipalities where I didn't even bother checking. I suppose it will be a sight for your sore eyes to see the map painted red Wink
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GMantis
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« Reply #35 on: March 26, 2017, 05:11:24 PM »

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I will need the final results in tabular form, which might take a week. Which reminds me that I still haven't made the maps of the presidential elections and referendums...


The new format of the electoral commission's result page should make it easier. And as to the presidentials, I guess the second round map will be rather easy to do, haha. Tsacheva ended up losing Dospat municipality by 5 votes instead of winning by 7 (or thereabout), but she picked up a couple of random Shumen region municipalities where I didn't even bother checking. I suppose it will be a sight for your sore eyes to see the map painted red Wink
Actually, I already made that one. See here.
I expect that most of the municipalities won by GERB had some strong business connection with that party. What I found interesting how these two overwhelmingly Turkish minority municipalities (Venets and Nikola Kozlevo) voted for Tsacheva when their equally overhelmingly Turkish neighbors voted strongly for Radev. Perhaps the local mayors switched to Mestan. Also surprising to see the former BSP stronghold Boynitsa (close to Vidin) switching over to GERB.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #36 on: March 26, 2017, 05:13:11 PM »
« Edited: March 26, 2017, 05:15:37 PM by DavidB. »

A Bulgarian acquaintance of mine voted RB because "GERB is too pro-Turkish" (in international politics) and said "the Bulgarian left is pro-Russia, the Bulgarian right is pro-Turkish." To what extent would you say there is a meaningful difference between RB and GERB in this regard, and would you say the second characterization is broadly correct?
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Beagle
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« Reply #37 on: March 27, 2017, 04:07:31 AM »

The final - well, 99% final - results:

GERB: 32.64%
BSP: 27.12%
United Patriots: 9.06%
DPS: 9.04%
Volya: 4.15%
RB: 3.02%
Yes Bulgaria: 2.91%
Dost: 2.89%
New Republic: 2.50%
ABV/,m21: 1.55%
Revival: 1.08%

9 other parties and coalitions with less than 0.3% each

Revival is an Ataka/VMRO offshoot, encompassing extreme leftists and clerical fascists.

I'll go into more detail later. 
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Beagle
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« Reply #38 on: March 27, 2017, 11:50:13 AM »

Before the mandatory retabulation, but with 100% of the vote in, the number of MPs in the 240-seat parliament is, as follows:

GERB - 95 +11, compared to 2014
BSP - 80 +41
United Patriots - 27 -3
DPS - 26 -12
Volya - 12 new

This gives GERB and the UP a majority of 122 - far too tender for Borisov to really consider it as an option, unless he has assurances from DPS that they will not raise any trouble.

An unofficial seat distribution has sprung a few surprises. Most notably, the speaker of parliament and 2016 presidential candidate Tsetska Tsacheva has lost her seat after she got displaced through preference votes. All in all, at least 4 GERB and 7 BSP MPs will get a seat through the "double vote" phenomenon - where the voter marks the same number both on the party list and on the preference list. DPS and UP are also likely affected, but I haven't had the time to go through their results, or to check on the preference vote picture in general.

The unofficial seat distribution has VMRO and Ataka at 8 seats out of the 27 of the United Patriots coalition, NFSB at 7 and another 4 are difficult to place. For instance, there is the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria founder, who then became Boyko Borisov's parliamentary secretary in the Borisov I government, who then switched to Kuneva and the RB, but has now switched to the NFSB. Or the minor party leader, who previously has been affiliated to Ataka, RZS and BSP, is in a coalition with Ataka in the Burgas municipal council, but is a business partner with a DPS MP... Ah, the joys of Bulgarian party life.

In any event, it is clear that for the first time in post-communist Bulgaria's history, a PM has been reelected immediately after stepping down. Any coalition the BSP may lead would be a suicide pact. Borisov will wait until Monday next week to start coalition negotiations, but even in a minority government situation, nobody (who is in parliament) wants new elections, so Borisov will certainly form his 3rd cabinet.

Is there any interest in the crosstabs of the exit-polls (the breakdown in education, age and ethnicity)?
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DavidB.
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« Reply #39 on: March 27, 2017, 01:45:29 PM »

Is there any interest in the crosstabs of the exit-polls (the breakdown in education, age and ethnicity)?
Yes!
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windjammer
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« Reply #40 on: March 27, 2017, 02:34:31 PM »

Before the mandatory retabulation, but with 100% of the vote in, the number of MPs in the 240-seat parliament is, as follows:

GERB - 95 +11, compared to 2014
BSP - 80 +41
United Patriots - 27 -3
DPS - 26 -12
Volya - 12 new

This gives GERB and the UP a majority of 122 - far too tender for Borisov to really consider it as an option, unless he has assurances from DPS that they will not raise any trouble.

An unofficial seat distribution has sprung a few surprises. Most notably, the speaker of parliament and 2016 presidential candidate Tsetska Tsacheva has lost her seat after she got displaced through preference votes. All in all, at least 4 GERB and 7 BSP MPs will get a seat through the "double vote" phenomenon - where the voter marks the same number both on the party list and on the preference list. DPS and UP are also likely affected, but I haven't had the time to go through their results, or to check on the preference vote picture in general.

The unofficial seat distribution has VMRO and Ataka at 8 seats out of the 27 of the United Patriots coalition, NFSB at 7 and another 4 are difficult to place. For instance, there is the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria founder, who then became Boyko Borisov's parliamentary secretary in the Borisov I government, who then switched to Kuneva and the RB, but has now switched to the NFSB. Or the minor party leader, who previously has been affiliated to Ataka, RZS and BSP, is in a coalition with Ataka in the Burgas municipal council, but is a business partner with a DPS MP... Ah, the joys of Bulgarian party life.

In any event, it is clear that for the first time in post-communist Bulgaria's history, a PM has been reelected immediately after stepping down. Any coalition the BSP may lead would be a suicide pact. Borisov will wait until Monday next week to start coalition negotiations, but even in a minority government situation, nobody (who is in parliament) wants new elections, so Borisov will certainly form his 3rd cabinet.

Is there any interest in the crosstabs of the exit-polls (the breakdown in education, age and ethnicity)?
Why BSP picked up so many votes
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« Reply #41 on: March 27, 2017, 03:05:00 PM »

What did Lider do this election and also what did Volya do last election?
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Beagle
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« Reply #42 on: March 27, 2017, 05:51:06 PM »
« Edited: March 27, 2017, 06:01:34 PM by Beagle »

Response time:

A Bulgarian acquaintance of mine voted RB because "GERB is too pro-Turkish" (in international politics) and said "the Bulgarian left is pro-Russia, the Bulgarian right is pro-Turkish." To what extent would you say there is a meaningful difference between RB and GERB in this regard, and would you say the second characterization is broadly correct?
Huh.The first question on the difference between RB and GERB is rather easy: after the Turkish party (NPSD, "Popular Party for Freedom and Dignity") that had been a founder of the RB left that coalition to join up with Dost, the RB Mk. 2 jumped on the 'Fear the Turk' bandwagon, for instance being the first to call for the vote in polling places in Turkey to be canceled/suspended after a particularly provoking statement by some Republic of Turkey official. The RB Mk.2 tried to score points in the battle for the Old Right by blaming Radan Kanev, the leader of DSB/New Republic, for inviting the NPSD in the first place. GERB, afaik, have always claimed that 'GERB is open to all Bulgarians, regardless of ethnicity or creed' and their tone in this campaign has been conciliatory. At several points Borisov said that (paraphrasing) anything that Erdogan perceives as mistreatment of Bulgarian Turks can serve as a pretext for Turkey to unleash the refugees upon us.

The second question is much more difficult to answer and GMantis as an outside observer will probably give a more honest appraisal of the Bulgarian Right. In general it is true that the 1997-2001 Old Right government put a special priority on good relations with Turkey. As Borisov came to power, the balance on the Balkans had changed in Turkey's favor and while he has never been particularly pro-Turkish according to me, he has always afforded Turkey the respect a next-door neighbor with 10 times the population, 14 times the GDP, 25 times the military forces etc. deserves. After the refugee crisis began, Borisov has constantly sounded the alarm that Europe and Bulgaria in particular can be flooded with refugees on Erdogan's whim and that good relations with Turkey are sine qua non (and also that he, Borisov, is the only one who can preserve the good relations). Following the 2016 coup attempt, Bulgaria turned away asylum seekers and in one particularly notorious case, detained and shipped seven Turkish officers to a very uncertain fate in Turkey. Still, I wouldn't say that GERB are particularly pro-Turkish in comparison to BSP, though of course the last time BSP governed without a coalition with DPS was over 20 years ago.

As to the left being pro-Russian - the BSP base is overwhelmingly pro-Russian, but the GERB base isn't that far behind according to most surveys. It is a fact that BSP gets institutional support from Russian sources and they tend to be the ones who initiate multi-billion energy projects for the benefit of Russia (such as Belene NPP). However, the 'Patriots' are the ones who wave white-blue-red flags alongside the white-green-red, and when it comes to money, it is the dominant DPS faction that works with Vneshtorgbank to consolidate their stranglehold on telecommunication and a few other lucrative sectors. GERB themselves have turned a blind eye on Lukoil tax evasion for years. BSP (which basically is the Bulgarian left now) can be called pro-Russian, but they are far from alone.

Before the mandatory retabulation, but with 100% of the vote in, the number of MPs in the 240-seat parliament is, as follows:
[...]
Why BSP picked up so many votes
The BSP rebounded from a historic low in 2014. At least 200 thousand traditional BSP voters, who abstained or voted for ABV last time, returned to the fold. Also, if I may quote myself from the first post in this thread:
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What did Lider do this election and also what did Volya do last election?
Lider:
From the 'Whatever became of Bulgaria without Censorship' answer:

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They received just over 3000 votes - 0.09% of the national vote.

Volya: Did not run. According to some rumors Mareshki supported GERB in 2014 in return for allowing him to name several important officials in the pharmacy regulator. Also... he was under arrest. For punching out the leader of the Revival party mentioned above.

Btw, the Revival party is the only non-parliamentary party which will receive a subsidy now, and if they break their promise to donate the subsidy to charity, they stand a good chance of getting into parliament next time around if/when the United Patriots have been tainted by government. Apparently there are enough people who consider Ataka to have gone soft :/

It is too late, but I will tackle Mantis' post tomorrow. He raises several valid points and has been proven quite correct that 'most GERB voters could not care less about who was in the lists as long as Borisov is leading the party'.

Edit: I see that tonight's episode of Slavi Trifonov's show (the talk show host behind the Electoral Rules Referendum Pt. 2: Electric Boogaloo) has been pulled by the TV station, who have refused to air it. Earlier today he had published an open letter reminding Parliament of his demands to take up and pass the referendum's agenda - although he had softened his stance and now gives them 2 months to do so. Call me cynical, but I think this has been scripted somewhere.
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Klartext89
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« Reply #43 on: March 28, 2017, 01:24:00 AM »

Thank you Beagle for the whole thread and explanations about Bulgarian politics and the election. Really appreciated reading it!

Still hope for a GERB+UP government. 122:118 isn't huge but the Opposition isn't one bloc so it could work out.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #44 on: March 28, 2017, 08:12:42 AM »

Thanks for your answers, Beagle!
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« Reply #45 on: April 28, 2017, 10:56:50 AM »

As I understand, the government have some form of agreement with Volya to give them a safer majority, but maybe one of the Bulgarians can expand slightly?

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http://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/upon-astrologers-advice-borissov-to-unveil-cabinet-on-4-may/
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Beagle
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« Reply #46 on: April 29, 2017, 04:04:09 AM »

As I understand, the government have some form of agreement with Volya to give them a safer majority, but maybe one of the Bulgarians can expand slightly?

Not much to expand on. Obviously I was extremely naive when I wrote

Volya (leader: Vesselin Mareshki; 2014: N/A; 2016: 11%)

[...]

Why they will not be in government: It is not 100% certain that Will makes it into parliament. Even if they do, Mareshki’s, um, colorful past and murky present do not make him into the ideal coalition partner.
Mareshki's colorful past and murky present make him a perfect coalition partner. It just took a slight reminder that he's still out on bail on the assault charge and he has now declared full and unconditional support for the Borisov III government (GERB+UP). Well, technically, Borisov didn't even allow Mareshki to declare it on his own - it was announced to the public through a GERB press release.
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Beagle
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« Reply #47 on: May 06, 2017, 08:41:38 AM »

With Mercury no longer in retrograde, the GERB-UP government has now (finally) taken over from the caretakers. The Borisov III cabinet sees quite a few holdovers from Borisov II, but with some strange twists - i.e. the justice minister moving to foreign affairs in order to make space for Tsacheva, the former speaker of parliament and failed 2016 presidential and 2017 parliamentary candidate. The United Patriots were supposed to bring in some change, but... well, judge for yourselves. The VMRO leader Karakachanov is deputy PM and defence minister, the NFSB leader Simeonov gets to be deputy PM without any actual powers, and then there are three ministries that are supposed to be the UP quota, but have been filled by people who have never been associated with any of the three parties in the coalition and who reportedly never even met with the UP leaders before now:
The ostensibly UP portfolios of agriculture and economy have gone to two long time associates of PM Borisov, who have both been implicated in major corruption scandals. The new environment minister is an Old Right figure, who is a global warming denier and who views environmentalism as misguided at best and as a trillion-dollar fraud at worst.

As already reported, Volya also supports the government. So does the first (of many, one presumes) renegade of the new parliament - a DPS MP, who got elected through the 'double vote' phenomenon (see above), refused to step down and got promptly expelled by his party. This produces a majority of 135 (with Volya) or 123 (without).

It is important to note the final distribution of seats within the UP parliamentary group - 11 VMRO (+2 compared to 2014), 9 Ataka (-2) and 7 NFSB (-3). The coalition's underwhelming result means that only VMRO (barely) can form a parliamentary group on their own if/when the three parties fall out. Having a parliamentary group is a condition for receiving state funding, having access to parliament resources and numerous other bonuses, so there will be added pressure on the nationalists to stick together. This distribution, along with Volya's support, means that Borisov can afford to lose any one of Volya/VMRO/NFSB/Ataka and still have a stable majority, so he can divide and rule as he pleases. This should make the government more stable and I'd be very surprised if it falls before 1. July 2018 when Bulgaria's term at the helm of the EU Council ends. However, I think it is unlikely it will last the full 4 year term.
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