Five men dominated the story of Bulgaria’s July 5 2009 national parliamentary elections contest – even though in the case of two of them, it was not clear whether they would even make it into Parliament.
 
Most were well-known figures from previous elections, and they managed to draw – or be given – more media attention than other established politicians.
 
For instance, Sergei Stanishev is a newsmaker in his own right in his current job of Prime Minister, but even allowing for that he seemed to take second place in every sense to the first on the list:
 
Boiko Borissov
 
For foreign correspondents seeking to introduce Borissov to their readers, a smorgasbord of descriptions was at hand – a former firefighter, former bodyguard (to communist dictator Todor Zhivkov and to former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg), martial arts exponent, former top cop, current mayor of Sofia and when all else fails "strongman".  
 
Borissov, leader of the party that every poll for months and years said was certain to lead his party into getting the largest share of votes, a trend confirmed in the June European Parliament elections.
 
In political and media circles, Borissov was the subject of constant speculation: Would he be Prime Minister? (he has been non-committal); with which parties would he form a coalition (by the end of the campaign, his answer was that he would prefer his party to govern alone or with the centrist Blue Coalition).
 
All but his closest advisers did not know the answers (prepare, in a few months’ time, to hear the wisdom of hindsight from those currently merely guessing what Borissov will do).
 
Borissov campaigned with the slogan "To show that Bulgarian can" with all the force and stamina that his earlier career trained him for. Matters were made easier for him with generally uncritical media coverage; and for all his combative skills, one election ritual he did not face was an eve-of-election television debate with Stanishev.
 
Ahmed Dogan
 
The detractors of the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms probably spent more time talking about him than his supporters did.
 
Dogan’s party is in the outgoing tripartite coalition Cabinet and was in power with Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s party in the previous government.
 
Dogan, who prefers to exercise influence from outside government offices (critics allege that he does not want to be a cabinet minister because of his past as a collaborator with the security services, as confirmed by the Dossier Commission), stirred up a hornet’s nest afresh by saying during the campaign that he held the power in Bulgaria in his hands, and decided how public money was spent.
 
It led to the spawning of the term "Doganisation", a rallying cry for nationalists opposed to what they allege is the undue influence of Turks and shady business circles in Bulgarian politics.
 
Dogan, whose party tends to get a consistent share of the vote thanks to a loyal constituency in the country and the reported 250 000 voters normally resident in Turkey, appeared in public to be, variously, amused and bemused by the slurs against him.
 
The Galevi
 
Bulgarian law provides for the suspension of prosecutions if defendants stand for Parliament, a provision that made it en vogue to rush from behind bars straight to the hustings.
 
A recent photo archive of businessman Plamen Galev, who with his associate Angel Hristov makes up the "Galevi Brothers", shows first, appearances in court, and later, election posters. The Galevi Brothers case is the most prominent one of invoking the law to delay prosecution and court proceedings pending the election process.
 
Galev and Hristov were arrested in December 2008 on charges including participation in an organised crime group that participated in violence, extortion and intimidation.
 
They stood for Parliament as liberals.
 
Ivan Kostov
 
Kostov led the Union of Democratic Forces government that, before being ousted in a scheduled parliamentary election in June 2001, had the task of getting Bulgaria’s economy on track after the meltdown of 1996/97.
 
Defeat saw Kostov initially become all but a recluse, resigning the leadership of the UDF, only to emerge after some time as the leader of his own Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria.

After innumerable failed attempts at centre-right unity in ensuing years, that generally ended in further acrimony, Kostov and the latest in a succession of UDF leaders, Martin Dimitrov, came up with the Blue Coalition, which in turn was the subject of much vituperation and court battles.
 
The Bulgarian Socialist Party sought to demonise Kostov, invoking distant memories of controversial privatisations during his government (a tactic presumably directed at older voters; first-time voters in this election would have been about eight years old when all of this was going on).
 
The BSP sought to damn Borissov and Kostov by association with each other, and ratcheted up the scare tactics by saying that a vote for Borissov was one for Kostov, and hence a fire sale of all state assets, slashing of pensions and other dire predictions, none of which actually was grounded in Borissov’s and the Blue Coalition’s campaign platforms.
 
However, as the campaign went by, it was unquestionable that the veteran and much more experienced Kostov grew in a new prominence – with some posters depicting him on his own, while previously care had been taken that he and Dimitrov had always appeared as a duo, somehow reminiscent of Batman and Robin.
 
Yane Yanev
 
In the 2006 presidential election, Yane Yanev was the candidate of his Order Law and Justice party. Television clips showed his somewhat modest election events, often consisting of Yanev speaking to handfuls of people in a succession of small, dowdy coffee shops.
 
Against the support for Georgi Purvanov, who defeated Volen Siderov in a second round, Yanev scored barely an electoral blip.
 
The 2009 European Parliament and national parliamentary election campaigns have been different for Yanev. Built up by media coverage in recent months of his allegations against various people, supported by official dossiers to which he seems to have regular access, Yanev seemed to have become a player, even if it was only a progression from very minor status to minor status.
 
His party’s 2009 campaigns also appeared vastly better-resourced than his 2006 presidential run. No motorist on a highway could escape Yanev’s outstretched hand and injunction to "Stop The Corruption". Television adverts depicted Yanev addressing a packed-to-capacity hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, a far cry from the somewhat more intimate salons of the past.
 
Another "personality" may be added to this list - a sixth.

The vote-buyer

The oft-repeated mantra of estate agents is that a successful transaction requires bringing together a willing buyer and a willing seller. Some in Bulgaria wanted to apply this principle to democracy.

One of the controversies in which Dogan was involved in the past was when he said that vote-buying was normal European practice.

Such was concern about the problem that it was the subject of special statements by Western diplomats, among them US ambassador Nancy McEldowney, and all political advertising in Bulgaria's 2009 parliamentary election was required to carry a health warning against vote-buying and vote-selling.

Shortly before the July 5 elections, authorities let it be known that there had been arrests and prosecutions for vote-buying.

For all that, and on top of earlier polls about people being willing to sell their votes, even after the busts people said that for them, money would talk. A report on Bulgarian National Television on July 4 showed residents of an impoverished Roma neighbourhood saying that they saw no problem in selling their votes. "I'm unemployed," one man said, "if someone wants to give me money to vote, why not?".