The 2017 early Parliamentary elections in Bulgaria will be remembered with the interference of Turkey and Russia, as well as with the excesses of nationalistic parties at the Bulgaria -Turkey border in their attempt to obtrude Bulgarian citizens exercise their constitutional rights. Those elections will also be remembered with a textbook example - how the Bulgarian Socialist Party missed the chance to win the elections.

“The moment BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said that democracy took a lot from the people and that the Bulgarians should love the fraternal Russian people, to fulfill Russian projects and nationalize a power distribution company the Bulgarian voters pulled themselves together and built a fence, in order to stop the cold winds blowing from the Kremlin”, political expert Evgenii Dainov told Radio Bulgaria commenting the unexpectedly high election result of GERB party. ”In other words, we are not going to witness the rearrangements Putin thought would happen in Bulgaria. The Kremlin will have some groups of people in some parliamentary floors. Most of them will be in the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the so-called patriots, but it will not have a whole parliamentary group at the country's National Assembly”, Evgenii Dainov went on to say.

With regard to the future ruling coalition the winner at the latest early elections is in the situation of former Premier Sergey Stanishev in 2013 when only few political parties entered the National Assembly and each one of them caused damages, Evgenii Dainov contends. After the incidents at the Bulgaria -Turkey border where representatives of the United Patriots obtruded illegally Bulgarian voters to cross the border coming from Turkey, GERB leader Boyko Borissov will find it difficult to persuade his western partners that he is planning to govern the country with that political party. In Evgenii Dainov's view, the so-called patriots may eventually choose to negotiate with the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Moreover, Valeri Simeonov from the United Patriots has already said that there was huge similarity between the election programmes of the patriots and the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Sociologist Parvan Simeonov from Gallup forecasted that GERB is most likely to form a ruling coalition with the United Patriots and receive the support of Volya Party and of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in some critical moments in the course of their government. However, Europe will not easily agree with a government consisting of pro-European parties and nationalists, Parvan Simeonov further said. However, the most important question is what type of policy line the Bulgarian cabinet should follow - a policy of reforms or a policy of entrenchment of the mafia.

“I don't know whether it is a case of entrenchment of the mafia, because mafia is everywhere”, Simeonov contends. “We are rather talking about a lack of long-term objectives and unnecessary spending. When someone goes out in the streets and starts protesting, spending increases. I am afraid that even if other parties become in charge of the country's government the situation will not change significantly. All I heard from the socialist party was only social messages and revisionist fervor against the European Union. However, sooner or later Bulgaria's authorities will have to start cutting expenditures. It will be painful and will be accompanied with a lot of protests and lower political ratings. However, the parties can't follow a policy line in favor of their ratings forever. Politicians can't initiate early elections, in order to preserve their vanity. The parties can't amend the election system, in order to protect themselves. People cannot say that democracy took a lot from us, in their efforts to win elections. Time will come when people will say - we can't pay anymore for unnecessary universities, inefficient healthcare and bloated administration. Bulgaria continues to postpone the difficult reforms and keeps on governing without any strategic thinking. We must change that in the future and try to trim the wings of the mafia a little. However, I am not an optimist.”

Nobody is interested in making any reforms whatsoever, Evgenii Dainov further commented and added:

“We can expect more of the same, because no political party, which is able to oppose to the “Who?” model aimed at feudalizing the country at the expense of civic society and democracy, managed to enter the National Assembly. However, But they will even overdo it, because there will be nobody to remind them of things of the recent past and will do something stupid like the previous appointment of Delyan Peevski for head of State Agency for National Security (SANS”.Since active citizens are not represented at the National Assembly, they will easily use the only instrument they have left and launch large-scale protests. So, politicians are playing with fire if they intend to bring the country under the sway of the mafia completely. The bad news is that the Bulgarians, in order to show their refusal to be sent back to the communist era, supported the upholder of the oligarchy Boyko Borissov. However, as Aristotle once wrote, the oligarchy always brings poverty and injustice”, political expert Evgenii Dainov concludes.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov