Before summer recess, parliament voted that the presidential elections in Bulgaria be held on 6 November. With only two and a half months to go, the political forces in the country have not yet nominated their candidates – some have too many candidates, others don’t have a single one. This delay is stupefying and, as some politicians say, to the detriment of society.

Obviously the political forces are hard put to nominate candidates from their own ranks – a case in point is the nomination of three whole generals. The Bulgarian Socialist Party and the ABV (Alternative for Bulgarian Revival) came up with a joint candidate – General Rumen Radev, until recently commander of the Bulgarian Air Force, the Union of Democratic Forces nominated former intelligence head, General Dimo Gyaurov, whereas within the ruling party, GERB, there is talk of nominating former general, now Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. According to some sociologists, in troubled times society looks for stability and nationalism, and generals seem to fit the bill perfectly. But is that really so?

Instead of a sense of stability, the nomination of General Radev engendered a great deal of strain within the left wing forces. The internal opposition within the BSP demanded that an extraordinary sitting of the party’s National Council be held to discuss the way the leadership forced General Radev’s presidential nomination onto the party. Two of the BSP Executive Bureau members tendered their resignation, though they were turned down. General Radev’s nomination has not been endorsed and the BSP was supposed to make its final choice from among six candidates on Sunday, but this choice was postponed. Meanwhile Movement 21, founded by former socialist Tatyana Doncheva withdrew from the negotiations for a joint left-wing presidential nomination. According to the Movement, the leadership of the Bulgarian Socialist Party was reducing the negotiations to merely coordinating a joint nomination so as to demonstrate that the party was on the rise instead of endeavouring to alter the status quo, now in the hands of the mafia. Doncheva says that General Radev’s nomination for president had actually been decided by a business circle connected with the arms lobby and that, on the whole, the BSP stood no chance at the coming elections.

The position the ruling GERB party is in is no rosier. The junior coalition partner – the Reformist Bloc – comprising five parties reached a joint decision to have an independent candidate. The names of the presidential duo nominated by the reformists will be announced around 20-25 August, until that time there are seven presidential nominations in circulation. There has been talk in the past few days however, of a joint presidential duo nomination with GERB. Word is that the senior coalition partner, GERB suggested it put forward the presidential candidate, leaving the vice-presidential nomination to the Reformist Bloc. This has not made things any clearer, as GERB has not announced its nomination, saying it will do so on September. A week ago, the party’s leader Boyko Borissov said, in his typical roundabout way, that the elections for president were elections among leaders and that the only person with any reason to hesitate was he himself, because the position of prime minister went with more power. The odds of Borissov trading the post of prime minister and leader of the ruling party for head of state, which, as stipulated by the constitution, is a ceremonial post more than anything else, are definitely slim. Though such a course of action is not to be ruled out altogether.

Be as it may, the political forces are in no hurry to announce their candidates for the upcoming presidential elections. And as professor of cultural anthropology Ivaylo Dichev commented for the Bulgarian National Radio, the fact itself that the biggest parties have not announced their presidential nominations yet shows that the nation is unable to identify a normal political figure capable of leading it and that is tragic.