Bulgaria: Gerb loses mayoral posts
Former prime minister Boyko Borisov's Gerb party has suffered heavy losses in local elections in Bulgaria. In the run-off votes in the major cities of Sofia and Varna on Sunday, candidates from the reform alliance PP-DB won the mayoral posts. A warning signal for the coalition in Sofia?
Tough times for coalition government in Sofia
The bitterly fought campaign between Gerb and the reform alliance PP-DB could have a fatal impact on the governing coalition between the two parties at the national level, warns Club Z:
“The relationship between Gerb and PP-DB increasingly resembles that of two spouses in a forced marriage who hate each other, defile and cheat on each other, but stay together for the sake of the children. It's also clear that divorce is inevitable and will be bloody and brutal. But they put it off until the children are older. ... So at this point it still looks like these two coalition partners who can't stand each other want to maintain the coalition.”
In decline
Sega sees Gerb heading for insignificance after the local elections:
“This party, which until four years ago had a firm grip on power in the largest Bulgarian municipalities, is now relinquishing one stronghold after another. ... There are many reasons for Gerb's decline. Its being in power for so long, the suspicions of corruption, its stranglehold on the authorities. ... But the most important reason is the one that has been valid for three to four years now: Gerb has become a toxic party. All politicians, with the exception of the [controversial Delyan] Peevski [of the Turkish minority party DPS], have united against it.”