Predictions of a hard-fought campaign ahead of the July 5 elections for Parliament failed to materialise. Instead of ideas and debate about how the country should be ruled, Bulgarians witnessed a negative campaign aimed at maligning political opponents.

During the campaign for the June 7 elections for European Parliament, many analysts had predicted that the campaign proper - with the ‘real’ messages - would take place before the national elections a month later. Even politicians took the MEP elections as just a test of their parties’ strength and failed to invest much effort in it. Unfortunately, those hoping for debate on the most pressing current issue in Bulgaria, the ongoing economic and financial crisis, were disappointed.

Bulgaria is probably one of the few countries in Europe where party leaders refused to face each other on television. Besides May’s tete a tete between Prime Minister and Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Sergei Stanishev and Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov, head of the biggest party in opposition, the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), not one debate occurred between the leaders. Instead, parties sent their ‘experts’ on TV to discuss the economic crisis, which inevitably led to personal quarrels and accusations of lack of expertise.

In terms of massive election rallies, parties also kept a low profile. Only the right-wing Blue Coalition held a rally on June 27 in Sofia in a throwback to the times, just after the fall of communism, when conservative parties used to stage such gatherings.  

The tone was partially set by the two largest parties, the BSP and GERB, when the BSP chose to launch its campaign on June 21 in Sofia’s Bankya borough, Borissov’s birthplace and considered his stronghold, especially since he still lives there. At the rally, the BSP crowd was faced by GERB supporters shouting insults at Stanishev and the BSP. Only a strong police presence prevented uglier developments. Just a few days later, the BSP, having taped the proceedings, screened an election TV spot showing GERB supporters acting like an angry mob and haranguing a crowd of BSP voters, including children and elderly people. Stanishev added to the campaign’s darker side by saying that "Bankya is not Borissov’s estate".

In the final week of the campaign, the BSP went even further by launching a TV broadcast directly condemning Borissov and Ivan Kostov of the Blue Coalition, as people who would bring chaos to Bulgaria if elected. Although Kostov, former prime minister and one of the BSP’s main political enemies, and Borissov, are running separately at the elections, the BSP spot showed them as certain coalition partners in a future Cabinet.

The spot is probably one of the darkest shown on Bulgarian television. An aircraft belonging to the former state-owned Balkan carrier is shown being smashed with a hatchet, with Kostov in the background. "Kostov did this to Balkan and he will do it to your pensions. Borissov is Kostov’s path back to power," a voice says. The Balkan aircraft is a reference to one of the most controversial privatisation deals conducted by Kostov’s government when the carrier was sold to an Israeli businessman, never to be seen in operation again. 

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the hustings was what many media call the mirror-like campaign led by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), traditionally representing Muslim Bulgarians, and a number of far-right and centre-right parties, including Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalist Ataka, and Yane Yanev’s Order, Law and Justice (OLJ) party.

The MRF kept a low profile until June 25 when its leader Ahmed Dogan was filmed saying that he was the instrument of power in Bulgaria and took all decisions about what money went where. This sparked a wave of anti-MRF and anti-Turk denunciations by Ataka and OLJ, probably serving only to consolidate Muslim Bulgarians’ support for the MRF.