Bulgarians to go back to the polls
Now it's a certainty: following the collapse of the grand coalition between the Gerb-SDS (conservative) and PP-DB (liberal, pro-European) alliances Bulgaria is headed for another snap election. This election, the sixth within three years, has been scheduled for 9 June, coinciding with the European elections. Until then an interim government under Dimitar Glavchev (Gerb) will take the helm. The national press is less than enthusiastic.
Borisov in pole position
In these new elections a familiar face has the best chance of returning to power, Sega predicts:
“After three years of retreat, Boyko Borisov is now about to take his revenge. Together with [oligarch and co-chairman of the Turkish minority party DPS] Delyan Peevski, he has successfully thwarted and weakened the PP-DB. Borisov has 500,000 to 600,000 loyal voters, giving him an advantage in the elections, and the catastrophic drop in voter turnout should work in his favour. Only the non-voters, for whom it is high time to wake up, can prevent him from winning together with Peevski.”
Only the prospect of what has already been
For the Bulgarians, going to the polls again is an imposition, the Bulgarian service of Deutsche Welle comments:
“The question is whether the fatigue among voters, which has accumulated as a result of the latest political crisis caused by the failure of the rotation policy, will turn into disgust and prevent the vast majority from going to the polls on 9 June. ... Or will voters mobilise and vent their anger at the ballot box? ... The prospect is not a new future, and also not an illusory one, but a past that has already been lived through: a choice between what existed yesterday but is now broken and needs to be repaired, and what was rejected but at this stage no longer seems so bad.”