Petkov and Vassilev entered the field of liberal urbanism, but lost the mass Bulgarian

– Mr. Ganev, a vote of no confidence against the government will be voted on Wednesday. What do you expect the result to be?

– The government lost its majority in parliament two weeks ago. There is already a new majority in the National Assembly and it was tested during the removal of Nikola Minchev. Between his removal and the no-confidence vote, only one MP from “There is such a people” went to the ruling camp. By that logic, the vote should pass. Another issue is that the instrument of political analysis cannot give an answer as to whether one or more deputies will decide on certain motives to change their position today, which they stated yesterday.

– If the vote of no confidence is voted, the resignation of the cabinet will follow. Then there will be attempts to form a new government. Do you think it is possible to form a new government within this National Assembly?

– I am not inclined to completely write off such a scenario, but it seems unlikely to me.

Note that Kiril Petkov in the last few days mentions an attempt to form a cabinet with the first term. It is understood that after a successful vote of no confidence, the president again handed over a mandate to the first political force to try to form a new cabinet. If there is any possibility of a new government in this National Assembly, it can only be around the coalition that has ruled so far – PP, BSP, DB and with some support from ITN. And to be a cabinet with a new coalition agreement, with a new prime minister, and probably with a new finance minister. All this, of course, seems extremely difficult to do because of the very strained relations with Trifonov.

Very harsh words have been said in the last two weeks, many lines have been crossed and this undoubtedly undermines the path to such an option. But in any case, a new attempt will be made to secede from another group of ITN deputies.

As for possible support from GERB – this seems too exotic to me. How will Borissov explain to his constituents that he is entering into some form of coalition with those who arrested him a few months ago? And a new cabinet around GERB is excluded. Coalition around GERB with whom? A coalition of Frankenstein with the MRF and Vazrazhdane not only seems impossible, but would also be suicidal for its participants.

– Do we understand that the elections are the most realistic option by this logic?

– Yes. But even before a vote of no confidence is convened by a minimal majority or in the first term, it will only prolong the agony by a few months. 121 mandates cannot be managed in Bulgaria. We remember what a pain with the quorum it was for a year and a little for Oresharski. Such a development will buy a few months of government life, but will not give it new legitimacy and public support. On the contrary. And in the end it will not change the final outcome – there will be early elections.

– What to expect from a new early parliamentary vote?

– The unknown is one thing – whether the paper ballot will return in the elections. I say this not by chance, because this factor will inevitably affect the election result. In parallel machine and paper voting, the turnout will be slightly higher, because some of the people who were worried about voting with a machine will return to the polls.

Voting with a paper ballot would help parties like the BSP, for example, because some of their voters have a technological barrier. GERB and MRF would probably also win.

and Vassilev enter the field

of the liberal urban, but

they lose the mass Bulgarian

Voting with a paper ballot would help parties like the BSP, for example, because some of their voters have a technological barrier. GERB and MRF would probably also win.

Beyond that, only the unknown sociological surveys of recent months show a total of three groups of formations depending on their size.

The first group belongs to the parties and coalitions that are closest to the barrier, but still above 4 percent. These are “There is such a people”, the new party of Stefan Yanev and “Democratic Bulgaria”.

The second group are the middle formations with about 10 percent of the voters – these are MRF, BSP and “Vazrazhdane”.

“We continue the change” I would categorize it between the second and third group. In the third group with a result of over 20% of voters is only GERB. I make the clarification and strongly emphasize that these were the attitudes of the Bulgarians before the earthquake that Slavi Trifonov caused by leaving the coalition. Undoubtedly, the new political situation after the withdrawal of the ITN will create dynamics in the electoral values ​​for the individual formations, but we will have a clearer picture only in mid-July. Now we need to wait for the outcome of this episode and at least make it clear to all of us whether the cabinet will survive, or there will be another, or elections are going on. Then the sociological agencies can launch a field of research to give a more realistic picture.

– What dynamics do you personally expect in support of the various parties?

– The events of the last few days still paint a new and different picture.

In the last few months, all sociological agencies have registered a downward trend in support for the formation around Petkov and Vassilev.

Trifonov’s departure from the coalition and the possibility of the resignation of this government, a political crisis and new elections gave a new plot to “We continue the change”. If this coalition had lasted another 5-6 months, the support for the cabinet and the party of Petkov and Vassilev would have continued to erode. It is no coincidence that a few weeks ago Borissov stated that he did not want elections now – GERB needed more time not only because the support for “We continue the change” is falling, but also because GERB itself was gradually coming out of isolation.

While now, notice, there is a battle of interpretations. Petkov and Vassilev already have a story. From one camp, in which the parties of the ruling coalition enter, they rely on the moral story – the battle against the mafia, the good against the bad, etc. On the other hand, there is another story – the government is a failure, inflation has dropped, Macedonia reported. Each of these two stories will try to convince the audience that his position is correct.

– Do you expect “We continue the change” to stabilize positions?

– It is quite possible that at least the decline in their formation will stop. It remains to be seen whether they will restore support. But what is clearly visible on the street is that the liberal urban community we know from other protests stands firmly behind Petkov and Vassilev, and it is likely that “We continue the change” will be able to consolidate much of it under its flags. This in itself is good news for them, but potentially bad for their partner Democratic Bulgaria.

However, there are also some risks for “We continue to change”. The full adoption of the agenda of the liberal urban community closes Petkov and Vassilev in a relatively limited electoral field. And their great achievement in the elections in November last year was precisely that they reached not only the liberal urban community, but also managed to integrate the agenda of the more mass Bulgarian. Of course, the legitimacy of President Radev, which seems to have been lost due to the obvious conflict between the ruling coalition and the head of state, also helped a lot.

– What government to expect after new elections?

– First let’s see if it will be possible to form a government at all. Our experience from last year has shown that there is no guarantee that a regular government will be reached after the elections. But let’s hope that the parties will show responsibility and will not leave the country without a regular cabinet and a dissolved parliament for months, while a socio-economic crisis is raging and a war is being waged a few hundred kilometers away.

However, relations between the various parties and political leaders are at a particularly low point. From the picture thus described, forming a government seems very difficult. In any case, if a cabinet is formed, we will again have a very complex, colorful and diverse configuration.

I recently outlined two camps, but I would not be surprised if part of one camp after the election shakes hands with part of the other camp. For example, an expert, programmatic government can be formed around a basic Euro-Atlantic consensus. Thus, it will be easier for the individual parties to justify after the elections why they shook hands, after having previously sworn that they would not form a coalition with this or that party. The answer will be that only an expert, programmatic, supra-party cabinet is supported, not a coalition.

– Before the elections, however, we will go through an office. What will be the composition of the next official cabinet, whose architect will be the president?

– The political situation presupposes that the president constructs a different character from Radev’s caretaker governments in 2021. The focus then was on the anti-GERB line, their actions were also aimed at revising Borissov’s government.

At the head of the forthcoming cabinet we will probably see a technocrat whose focus will be on overcoming the socio-economic crisis. It is unlikely that the president will allow himself to play brighter in the election campaign, as he did last year.

CV

Dimitar Ganev was born in 1986 in Varna

Bachelor and Master of Political Science at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski ”

Doctor of Political Science. Chief Assistant at the Department of Political Science at Sofia University and lecturer there

His research interests are related to the issues of the Bulgarian transition

He is the author of the book “The Road to the Constitution”, which was published in 2018.

Co-founder of the Trend Research Center

–