The manner in which the election campaign proceeded during the first ten days testifies rather to organizational-political, personnel and ideological exhaustion of the main parties. Campaign activities on the ground are few, lack energy and fresh ideas. There are no substantive pre-election debates, relying mainly on social networks. In general, the rhythm of the campaign is immersed in ongoing political scandals. At the same time, some radical-populist political subcultures began to emerge on the political surface. Their outlines are rather invisible in the official public discourse, but they generate some support mainly through more non-traditional channels of political communication. This is stated in an analysis by “Gallup International Bolkan” about the state of the pre-election campaign and the political forces in the first ten days of the official election.
Here’s Gallup’s detailed analysis of the state of the campaign and the political forces
GERB-SDS– a campaign with the image of a “winning party”
The GERB-SDS campaign exudes moderation and managerial self-confidence. The party appears monolithic, and its leader, Boyko Borisov, has taken an active role in the campaign. Efforts are being made at this stage of the campaign to build the image of GERB-SDS as a “winning party”, which should have a leading role in forming a regular government. For GERB, electing a government after the elections is of great importance, because otherwise there is a danger of disillusionment and erosion in their electorate. At the same time, the still unclear prospects of forming a parliamentary majority to produce a government apparently already motivate them to some hesitant requests for wider parliamentary interaction compared to tripartite cooperation during the so-called “assembly”.
The party lists include the formation’s experienced management team. The new emphasis with the inclusion of the successful mayors of large centers, such as Burgas, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, probably aims to further open the party to peripheral electoral groups, but at the same time it is also a symptom of limited personnel resources and may lead to a building effect in the campaign.
PP-DB – an impression of a lack of a single campaign with a single strategy, single messages and vision. “Revival”– two constraints and one strategic problem
PP-DB are the main contender for second place in this election.
Compared to their competitor for the second position, “Vazrazhdane”, PP-DB has the significant advantage of having a more significant electoral reserve, which, if mobilized, can easily guarantee the coalition’s second place. However, there is an impression of a lack of a single campaign with a single strategy, single messages and vision. On the one hand, “Continuing the Change”, whose candidates dominate the candidate lists, maintains its more radical line, mixed with the familiar “messianic” talk in the “good forces – dark forces” categories. On the other hand, “Democratic Bulgaria” and its leaders have a much more selective and moderate behavior and messages, which leaves more room for post-election maneuvers and negotiation opportunities.
The coalition definitely has the potential to regain some of the votes lost in the previous elections. The whole question is whether the outlined imbalances and defocusing of the campaign, as well as factors such as disillusionment with their inclusion in previous coalition formats, will not prevent this.
“Revival” is positioned as PP-DB’s main competitor for second place, but faces two limitations and one strategic problem. The first limitation consists in the fact that “Vazrazhdane” conducts its campaign in the familiar ruts – sharp attacks against the pro-European and pro-Western politics of Bulgaria. This puts a kind of electoral ceiling on them. The second limitation is the presence of smaller formations in the same political niche that actively try to attract disaffected sympathizers.
The big strategic problem for “Vazrazhdane”, however, is the geopolitical “sanitary cordon”,
which blocks their way to a possible direct participation in power, even in case of hypothetical electoral success.
DPS-New beginning and APS– the fierce competition for the traditional DPS voters. The biggest question mark in this election is the fierce competition for traditional DPS voters. In the conditions of internal division, the party entity DPS, headed by Delyan Peevski, participated in the pre-election coalition DPS-New Beginning. The composition of their lists testifies that a significant part of the party active, authorities from the local communities, many of the mayors of municipalities, which were traditionally considered the “fortress” of the DPS, remained loyal to the party entity. This is a prerequisite for successful political mobilization. Problems and limitations for their campaign may arise from a possible strengthening of the competitive APS coalition, as well as from sharp conflicts with President Rumen Radev and with former partners from the collapsed constitutional majority in the form of the PP-DB.
On the other hand, in these elections, leading factors and assets of the DPS, including the honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan, participate in the coalition lists Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ALF)made up of other parties – People’s Agricultural Union and SBOR. At this stage of the campaign, for obvious reasons, their actions and messages are dominated by the internal conflict in the DPS, and from there – with the DPS-New Beginning coalition. This to some extent encapsulates their electoral options and messages.
Ahmed Dogan’s actual absence from pre-election events so far can be seen as a problem for the campaign.
including from the opening of the campaign in Kardzhali. At the same time, their lists seem to be quite diverse in terms of political profile – the presence of political figures from other parties, known from the recent past, is striking, for example – Nikolay Tsonev, Nikolay Barekov, Yavor Haitov.
BSP-United Left, ITN and other formations
BSP-United Left appears in these elections rather as a mechanically assembled coalition format, which, however, has no particular potential to build on an electoral result. The candidate lists are quite unrecognizable, there is no prominent political leadership, and the disintegration of BSP’s local structures in recent years, combined with insufficient representation in local government, puts the coalition in danger of approaching the risk zone around the 4 percent barrier.
ETC seem certain of their place in the new parliament,
but it should be noted that a stronger consolidation of protest and punitive vote around formations like SWORD and “Greatness“, it would be mostly at their expense.
Formations in the right space, such as “Blue Bulgaria”at this stage they fail to build on their performance from the previous elections. It should be borne in mind that their results depend to a certain extent on the mobilization of the electorates of the larger right-wing formations, such as GERB-SDS and PP-DB.
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