November 15’s special elections for Sofia mayor are expected to be the final stage in the almost complete dominance of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s party, the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (abbreviated as GERB in Bulgarian).

No one doubts that GERB’s candidate, Education Minister and former deputy Sofia mayor for education, Yordanka Fandukova, will triumph. The only uncertainty is whether she will win in the first round.

The turnout holds the key to this question. Having voted at two national elections this summer (for the Bulgarian and European Parliaments) people seem disinclined to go to the polls again, especially after all surveys indicate that Borissov’s immense popularity leaves Fandukova’s opponents without a chance.

Most of the mainstream parties did not even consider staging their own candidates. Describing itself as a centre-right party, GERB had little problem securing support from the right-wing Blue Coalition and ultra-nationalist Ataka party which supported Borissov’s election as Prime Minister. The other party that supports GERB’s Government, Yane Yanev’s Order, Law and Justice party, took a different route by nominating its own candidate. Many analysts interpreted this as Yanev’s way of keeping his party separate from GERB’s ever-growing influence.

On November 15, a total of 18 candidates will try to win the support of more than one million voters in the city. The pivotal confrontation will be between Fandukova and Georgi Kadiev, from the former ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). The two parties have been in open warfare in and out of Parliament ever since the BSP lost the elections to GERB.

Now that the BSP is out of power, the situation is reminiscent of the late 1990s when the BSP languished in opposition and the right-wing Union of Democratic Forces (now part of the Blue Coalition) had a prime minister and a Sofia mayor.

Personalities
Unlike those times, when election campaigns were fought on ideology, the election duel between Fandukova and Kadiev was fought on the grounds of the two candidates’ personal qualities.

This is a new feature in Bulgaria’s political life, mainly because Fandukova and Kadiev, to some extent, are not political animals in the way that their party leaders, Borissov and former prime minister Sergei Stanishev, are. Before becoming deputy mayor of Sofia during Borissov’s term as Sofia mayor (2005-2009), Fandukova was head of a Sofia high school.

Even as deputy mayor, she kept her head down, acting as one of Borissov’s experts. In fact, it is her low profile and lack of political initiative which has prompted her critics to suggest that she would act as Borissov’s shadow in the city hall which is  controlled by GERB’s municipal councillors who, together with the other right-wing parties, form a large majority.  

Kadiev has more experience in politics. He joined the BSP in 2005 as deputy finance minister, only to resign two years later, citing disagreement with the then finance minister. Since then he has been been a regular critic of his party’s economic policy, earning him a reputation as the BSP’s outcast. He only became the BSP candidate because no one else in the party wanted the nomination. Fandukova’s candidature was explained by her desire to continue Borissov’s policy in the city hall.

Kadiev, on the other hand, justified it through his desire to offer Sofians an alternative to GERB’s candidate and help his party recover from its crushing defeat at the Parliamentary elections.

Harbouring different agendas, the two candidates’ election platforms differed little. Both agreed that Sofia’s main problems were stray dogs, refuse collection, transport, environment and the lack of sufficient kindergartens. Both agreed on how these problems should be addressed. Hence there was no real political election duel and little clash of ideas during the rather nondescript campaign.

It was as if both knew the result of the contest and were just waiting for it to end. This was one of the impressions of the only debate Kadiev and Fandukova held during the campaign, on November 11 on private bTV channel, when both agreed that Sofia should be ruled well and wished each other good
luck.

For now everything depends on Fandukova’s ability to motivate the right-wing non-GERB supporters to come out and vote for her. According to most surveys, if this doesn’t happen, a second round will be very likely. Then Kadiev will hope for a miracle, the same as President Georgi Purvanov did in 2001 when the then-BSP leader won his first term against the right-wing candidate and presumed winner, Petar Stoyanov.