Bulgaria: party not hostile to Russia and Eurocritical wins political elections
Bulgarian center-right party GERB – led by long-time former prime minister Boyko Borissov – is set to win Sunday's fourth elections in less than two years, according to partial results, but its chances of forming a coalition government remain uncertain. Borissov has a deep government experience and has been close to Vladimir Putin in the past, although he is now part of the EPP, so many trust in his diplomatic experience to unravel the complex relations with Russia, especially from the energy point of view.
With 99% of the ballots scrutinized on Monday morning, the official partial results showed GERB's victory with 25.4%.
Its main rival, the reformist We Continue the Change of former prime minister Kiril Petkov, whose coalition cabinet collapsed in June, came in second with 20.2%. The low turnout reflects the apathy and deep distrust of voters.
The results suggest difficult coalition talks in a fragmented parliament or even another flash election in the state that is the poorest member of the EU.
Both cases would prolong the political instability between rising energy and consumer goods prices and the war in Ukraine and raise the prospect that Bulgaria will not be able to enter the euro area with the single currency by the end of. 2024. Five more parties are expected to enter the 240-seat chamber.
These are the ethnic Turkish MRF party with a 13.7% projection, the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party with 10.2%, the socialist party with 9.3%, the liberal anti-corruption group Democratic Bulgaria with the 7.5% and the newly formed Bulgarian nationalist party Rise with 4.6%.
Final official results are expected on Thursday.
Efforts to put together a functioning coalition are expected to be complicated by the fact that many of Borissov's political opponents accuse him of allowing widespread corruption during his 10-year rule, which ended last year. Obviously the interested party rejects the accusations.
Some voters from the poorest EU member state argue that Borissov offers stability and has the diplomatic experience needed to manage Bulgaria's complex relations with Russia. Furthermore, Borissov's positions have often been one of criticism of the EU for the total lack of solidarity on the issue of migrants, one of the problems gripping Bulgaria.
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The article Bulgaria: party not hostile to Russia and Eurocritic wins political elections comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/bulgaria-partito-non-ostile-alla-russia-ed-eurocritico-vince-le-elezioni-politiche/ on Wed, 05 Oct 2022 11:32:03 +0000.