8 Elections in 4 Years: What’s Going on in Bulgaria?

Bulgaria has been in the midst of a political crisis since 2021, and last weekend, the country went to the polls for the 7th time in three years. In this video, we're taking a look at the results, and whether the crisis could be resolved this time around.

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Sources:
Bulgaria corruption:

Bulgaria political crisis and elections:

Latest election:

00:00 - Introduction
00:43 - How the Crisis Started
01:59 - Election After Election After Election
04:59 - Recent Election Results
05:53 - What Now?
08:17 - Sponsored Content

[doc]

As a foreigner living in Bulgaria, it is astonishing to me how everyone here complains about the election results yet none of them vote...

[MagicMiro]

Its year 2037 Bulgaria had elections for 337 times in a row. The president is choosing a new temp government to tackle the current problems.

[h_kostadinov]

Major error in the video: according to the Bulgarian constitution, if the first and second parties fail to form a government, the president gives the mandate to another party of his choosing, not necessarily the third one.

[FantomBloth]

30 yeard old bulgarian here. I forgot how many times I voted. I even visited the parlament on a school feild trip. The goverment treats peoole horribly if you want to be smart, ambitious, educated. It treats you great if you are just want to be unitressted, loyal worker. The Inteligencia/artist is always the one to suffer

[Reazzurro]

I think we can all agree that Bulgaria has some wild party names.

[iordanangelov]

As a bulgarian, I love your pronunciation. It is very funny

[Chrissy]

Insane. This gets even worse when you think about voter turnout. I think it's currently at roughly 30%

[PhthaloJohnson]

Some but not all problems can be summarized as follows:

1. Borisov refused to leave politics after the protests and when his party was defeated numerous times, likely out of fear of being investigated under the new regime.

2. Anti western, pro Russian sentiment and foreign interference (mostly Russian). The problem here is that most people are pro EU and NATO yet still have some reservations about both alliances. This makes it impossible to gather around pro Russian parties because you cannot square the circle of being anti West while participating in every Western institution but also walking on eggshells of people that have a growing sense of Western identity.

3. Voter fatigue. People don't take elections seriously because they know they'll be new elections again in 4 months.

4. General disillusionment. We were supposed to be in Schengen and the Euro zone 15 years ago yet here we are. Many infrastructure projects as well as rule of law bills were promised and nothing. People vote on vibes because they don't actually believe that anything else really makes any difference.

I don't think there's anything that can solve this mess, however increasing the threshold of getting into parliament can help by making it possible to create coalitions with less parties and this potentially more stable. Getting rid of the most outrageous politicians can also help.

[og]

quick detail to point out: GERB is pronounced with an E as in bed rather than an uh sound. It means coat of arms in Bulgarian

[stefantsarev]

Borisov and Peevski still have a tight grip on the small towns and counties. Most of the mayors are from GERB or DPS; they easily force the locals into voting for the party: "winter is coming, and if you want access for firewood, you'll vote for us". Peevski holds the "purchased vote", i.e. giving money for votes, mostly within the ever-growing Roma ghettos.
Overall, to have a real impact, these two factors need to be eliminated, and it won't happen. Yeah, the cities can vote for others, but Bulgaria is not just Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas.

[desssval]

Nothing is as it seems in Bulgaria: parties, leaders, policies and in a way they do not matter. What matters is the war in Ukraine which determines everything else.

90 % of the Bulgarian elite comes from the old communist nomenclature and the all powerful secret police apparatus which was effectively a local branch of the Soviet KGB. Literary everything in Bulgaria was decided by Moscow and the decisive factor for success was the direct link to Kremlin. After 1989 Bulgaria the local elite applied the Russian oligarchic model to the full with a bit more colourful party life. When Putin became president in the early 2000s he opened Russia to the West and Bulgaria did that too joining NATO and EU. Bulgaria became a bridge between Russia and the EU where both invested and had strong control: Russia holding 90 % of gas, oil, nuclear and coal supplies and facilities and the West having the retail and industrial sector.

Borissov and his GERB party are full of former army and police people and despite the rhetoric kept the oligarchic and corruption system in tact feeding it up with EU money. Borissov was a former mafia guy and was the bodyguard of the long serving communist leader of Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov fully loyal to the generals of the Bulgarian DS/KGB. In 20 years they became enormously rich and control the media, the judicial system and the prosecutor office plus the security agency DANS.

Most of the other parties have the same origin and structure. Different names, same corporation and shareholders. Corruption thrives but it is protected vigorously by the judiciary and security services plus parties like DPS, ITN, BSP and quasi patriots of Vazrazhdane.

Hence, the only option left is street protests. They erupted several times but each time the KGB elite created new parties which when voted in power did exactly nothing.

The genuine opposition parties are small, have no funding and no media, and are powerless against the combined onslaught of all other parties plus all media plus direct intervention by the security agency and the judiciary which do everything to destroy it. So Borissov and DPS win but lack legitimacy because they block all measures against corruption. Europe insists so Borissov promises and then plays a game of trying but not succeeding to reform anything.

And then in 2022 came the war in Ukraine. The Bulgarian KGB elite was torn in two: it depends on Russia for its money, protection and business but loves the EU money and does not want it to stop. The double game they were playing for 20 years became impossible. Putin insists on direct support in the style of Orban, Brussels had sponsored and supported Borissov for very long time ignoring his antics but now demanded loyalty.

Under pressure from the US, GERB-DPS-BSP did support a minority government by the reformist opposition. They proclaimed support for Ukraine publicly but privately waged a war against the pro-Ukraine PP/DB government and slowed down its actions as much as they could. Then found a reason to topple them altogether.

This was their solution to the Moscow-Brussels dilemma: We cannot chose and will not chose. Putin kills the 'traitors', Brussels talks a lot but is not nearly as dangerous. So - how to stop support for Ukraine? By having no government and no responsibilities. By calling election after election in promising everything to Brussels, winning and then… calling another one.

It is a waiting game. The moment one of the two sides wins they will form a government. If Trump wins: old Russian style kleptocracy will return with vengeance led by Borissov, DPS, ITN, BSP and whoever else they chose.

If Kamala Harris wins, Borissov will make his n-teeth pseudoreformist government and pay lip service to supporting Ukraine. Either way, Russian interests, money, ties will remain in tact waiting for better times to come on the surface.

[yvasev]

The problem is our legislation. We don't have a threshold for the elections to be considered valid. Even if a single person casts their vote, the elections would be considered valid.
But yes, there is no excuse for not voting, I also think if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. I haven't missed an election ever since I have the right to vote.

[barvazon]

and I thought we had it bad here at israel 💀

[baio]

Major mistake in the video. Revival is not a pro-russian party. Revival is following the bulgarian national interest and the bulgarian national interest only. For example - They want to remove the sanctions bulgaria has on Russia not because they simphetize Russia, but because the sanctions lead to less and less market for the bulgarian manufacturers which results in more and more bankrupts, which on another hand raises the need for import, making Bulgaria less independent country.
The didn't support the closing of the coal mines for the same reason. Without coal mines Bulgaria needs to import electricity which is going to raise the cost of it and again making Bulgaria dependent on another country.

[skwtf]

At the end you mentioned that the voting activity has increased.
It's safe to assume that it's because of a record in bought votes from Peevski.
For a few dozen million euro he basically bought into 4th place.

[ventsislavminev]

They switched from mortal enemies to best buds 3 times in the past year. How the hell should I know for whom to vote. 😂

[Okiejayjay]

Bulgaria has had a government for many years, it’s in a huge complex built in a public park. It’s known as the American Embassy.

[georgi.manovski]

Recently we’ve been saying stuff like “when you have been voting more times than getting laid you know it’s bad”, “if Peevski joined the American election he would win no questions asked” and yeah the political situation here is awful, also there is very little amount of people voting proportionally speaking

[Kelebrimbor]

8 parties were elected, not 9. Error in the video

[elizakarmasalo]

CORRECTION: Bulgaria has been in political crises since 30 years.