For the fifth time in the last two years, a record in the European Union (EU), Bulgarians started voting on Sunday to elect their parliament, in a country divided in the face of the Russian invasion launched in Ukraine, press agencies inform the international community. Far from the hopes generated by the wave of anti-corruption demonstrations in the summer of 2020, this country with 6.5 million inhabitants, the poorest in the EU, is sinking into crisis. Since the ouster of former conservative Prime Minister Boiko Borisov after a decade in power, Bulgaria’s various parties have been unable to agree to build a coalition, and interim governments have been in succession. The problems are accentuated by the conflict in Ukraine, in a society historically and culturally close to Moscow and currently divided over aid for Kiev. “In the face of war and inflation, society insistently demands a solution”, according to Parvan Simeonov, from the Gallup International Institute, but many of the protesters in 2020 have lost their illusions, and a heightened absenteeism is expected.

Two major political forces face off this Sunday: on the one hand, the conservative Gerb party of Borisov, 63; on the other, the pro-Western reformers of Kiril Petkov, a 42-year-old businessman who briefly ruled in 2022. Opinion polls give these two forces an almost equal score, with 25% and 26% of voting intentions, suggesting new problems for the formation of a stable coalition. The polling stations opened at 7:00 in the morning (04:00 GMT), and the first estimates of exit polls are expected at the end of the polls, at 20:00 (17:00 GMT). Faced with this “worrying spiral of elections”, Lukas Macek, an associate researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute for Central and Eastern Europe, declares himself “skeptical about a possible solution, except for a withdrawal of Boiko Borisov”. “We find the same pattern as in other Central European countries: a former leader who clings (to power), while other parties refuse to ally with him, but without otherwise having much in common,” he declared Lukas Macek for AFP. Kiril Petkov’s Continue the Change party has this time partnered with the right-wing Democratic Bulgaria. However, due to a lack of partners, they can only hope to form an essentially fragile minority government.

Despite the reluctance towards Boiko Borisov, whose image has been tarnished by corruption affairs, the pro-Western camp has an interest in allying with him, opines Ognian Peitchev, a 60-year-old engineer interviewed by AFP at a recent demonstration in support of Ukraine. “I am afraid of the influence of the pro-Russian parties in the future parliament”, he confessed. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (PSB), the successor of the former communist party, refuses any arms deliveries to Kiev and openly defends the Kremlin’s ideology. Like the young ultra-nationalist Vazrajdenie (Renaissance), it has a good start to continue its rise: it is credited with 13.6% in voting intentions, compared to 10% in October. If this new vote is not conclusive, the Bulgarians will have to form a new interim government appointed by President Rumen Radev, who is firmly against sending arms to Ukraine. A scenario that has the support of Russophiles such as Mariana Valkova, 62 years old. “Both Petkov and Borisov are really too turned on against Russia. Under these conditions, I prefer not to form a government and for Radev to keep control,” declares this head of business, nostalgic for the Soviet Union where she once worked.

By Paul Bumman