On June 7 citizens of Bulgaria elected 17 Bulgarian members of the European Parliament, who will represent their country in the European Union elected body during the coming five years. This was the second European election in Bulgaria after the elections in 2007.
Usually people are less interested in the elections of the European Parliament than the national elections in Europe, which was observed in Bulgaria as well. However, the election was active this year because the voter turnout was 39% instead of the 29% in 2007. However the voter turnout in Bulgaria was rather passive compared to the other countries of Europe where the voter turnout is usually about 43%. It is worth mentioning that the cumulative voter turnout in the European elections was the lowest ever; in 1979 the voter turnout of the European Parliament elections was 62%. The positive side of this election in Bulgaria was that it was a preparation phase for the major political parties to get ready for the parliamentary elections on July 5. Most of the political parties invested less resources and efforts as they usually do and this time the pre-election campaign lasted shorter (21 days). By the way, the campaign was not focused on specific European issues such as the future role in the global development and or Turkey’s membership, but inner political issues such as corruption and the economic situation. This election was an opportunity for the political parties to monitor the political environment and ambitions of parties before the upcoming parliamentary elections, which is more important for them.
Also, as a result of this election it became clear the GERB political party of the mayor of Sophia has fewer supporters than expected. This party received the 24.4% of the votes. Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev’s Socialistic Party of Bulgaria (SPB) won the second place with 18.5%. The third place was taken by the Ethnic Turks’ Rights and Freedoms Protection Movement (ETRFPM) with 14.1%. The other places were taken by Right attacking party (11.96%), the former king’s NDSV party (7.96%) and Blue Coalition (7.95%), due to which Bulgaria was able to fight the economic crisis in 1996-97. If this proportion stays the same during the parliamentary elections as well, it will be pretty hard for any 2 or 3 parties to make a government.
It is worth mentioning that electoral violations and cases of manipulation were observed as well. Electoral bribery was a bigger problem this time than during the parliamentary elections of 2005. The European Commission demanded from the Bulgarian government to take measures. It is worth mentioning that this time the mechanisms of buying votes were significantly improved and now they did not pay in cash so much. Besides that two phenomenon were discovered: corporate voting and vote transfusion. In several big companies and mines belonging to a newly established political party named Leader the workers were warned to vote for this party if they didn’t want to lose their jobs or get less money. As a result this company received about 50% of the votes in the areas where the companies and mines were located. As for the vote transfusion, it was observed in relation to the Turkish Rights and Freedoms movement. The constituency of this political power is very quiet and easy to control but this time most of their votes were given to the Leader or NDSV, which according to pre-election surveys almost did not have any opportunities to appear in the European parliament. Experts say that this is the strategy of the ruling coalition, which wants to survive by all means. The purpose of the vote transfusion is to provide the presence of several small or medium marginal parties, which will make it difficult to make the cabinet in case of the mentioned party’s victory. It is worth mentioning again that all these processes were tried and served as a training before the parliamentary elections scheduled for July 5.
Stephan Ralchev
Independent journalist, Sofia
Exclusively for 168 Zham
This supplement has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The content of this supplement is the sole responsibility of “168 Hours” Newspaper and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union