Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov emerged as the relative winner of the Sunday parliamentary elections, though his lack of coalition potential might result in either a minority government or stalemate leading to new elections.
After nearly all of the votes were counted on Monday, Borisov’s centre-right GERB party received a relative majority, winning 25.3% of the popular vote, putting the former PM on track to receive a mandate for forming the next government from President Rumen Radev.
However, Borisov will face an uphill struggle to secure the necessary majority in the parliament, as most other parties have indicated they wouldn’t be willing to enter into a coalition with the former head of government who is widely perceived as either corrupt or tolerant of corruption.
Outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s We Continue the Change (PP) party finished second with 20.2% of the popular vote. The election was marked by low turnout, with many of the voters feeling disillusioned by politics following three general elections held in 2021.
While the November 2021 elections managed to result in Petkov, a Harvard-educated economist, forming a wide coalition with the centre-left and anti-corruption parties, the prior two elections ended up very similar to this Sunday’s – with no easily formable coalitions. In both cases, the stalemate led to a new round of elections.
Kiril’s outgoing government collapsed after losing the support of There Is Such a People (ITN), a populist party led by singer and former TV show host Slavi Trifonov. Even though Trifonov topped the polls in the first two elections in 2021, his departure from the ruling coalition brought down ITN’s popular support, with the party failing to pass the electoral threshold on Sunday.
Borisov could potentially count on ethnic Turkish DPS party, which won 13.7% of the popular vote, but would need further partners to form a majority in the parliament. He could try to court the pro-Russian Revival party and the newly-formed nationalist Bulgarian Rise party, which won 10.2 and 4.6%, respectively.
On the other hand, Borisov rushed to clarify his position on the war in Ukraine soon after preliminary results were announced. “With this aggression, with this war with a clear aggressor in the face of Putin, with this farce with the referendums, Bulgaria must be very clear, categorical and precise about its place in the European Union and NATO,” said Borisov, stressing that he has nothing against the Russian people.
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