Bulgarians went to the polling stations not once but twice in 2007.

Fortunately for the political and financial stability of the country, this had nothing to do with early elections. Everything was according to schedule. In May, Bulgaria held its first elections for members of the European Parliament (EP). Between the January 1 accession and the election, the country’s MEPs were interim appointments, having served as Bulgaria’s observers at the EP before the country joined the EU. The second elections were in October when the vote was about mayors and municipal councillors.

This was not the first time that Bulgarians had to go to the polls twice in one year. However, the major difference was that this time Bulgarians were accompanied by foreigners, or strictly speaking by other EU nationals. As an EU member, Bulgaria gave EU citizens permanently resident in Bulgaria the right to first vote for Bulgarian MEPs in May, and in October to stand as, and vote for, municipal councillors.    

In total, 17 EU nationals registered to vote in the MEP elections and one stood as a candidate municipal councillor in the town of Gabrovo.

The MEP elections were important for an additional reason. For the first time, voters were able to choose to support individuals rather than parties. The result, however, was that not a single candidate standing as an individual made it to the European Parliament.

Further, the May 20 elections were the first for the newly-formed party Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (abbreviated as GERB in Bulgarian). The party is “informally” led by one of the most popular public figures in Bulgaria, Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov, who presented GERB as an alternative to the ruling coalition made up of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

Opinion polls ahead of the elections were vindicated when, despite the fact that GERB is not represented in Parliament, Borissov took the largest share of votes, followed by the BSP and the MRF. This conferred on Borissov the status of a real political force in Bulgaria, giving him enough reason to declare himself as not only the sole alternative to the Government, but the sole representative of the right-wing supporters since none of the traditional right-wing parties managed to win a seat in the EP.

The MRF’s good result was another significant outcome of the MEP elections, simply because the MRF has always been seen as the party of Bulgarians of Turkish descent, drawing its electorate from thousands of Bulgarian passport-holders resident in Turkey. This was an image MRF leader Ahmed Dogan has tried to change by putting non-Muslim Bulgarians on the party’s ticket. The MRF’s strong result defined the party as an inevitable factor in Bulgaria’s politics. This happened not without help from the party’s opponents.

In an attempt to stop MRF supporters coming from Turkey to vote, on February 14 Parliament introduced a residence principle for the MEP elections. To be eligible to vote, Bulgarians should have lived permanently in Bulgaria for no less than three months before the elections. Despite this, the MRF vote remained as solid as ever. The reason was simple. Most Bulgarians did not go to vote on May 20. The record low voter turnout made the loyal votes cast for the MRF a decisive factor. The reason: throughout the campaigns, no party focussed on explaining the duties of an MEP and how an MEP’s work might or might not influence Bulgarians in Bulgaria. The EP as an institution remained vastly insignificant to Bulgarians, polls said.

Little changed in the October 28 municipal elections. Again the big winners were Boiko Borissov with GERB and Ahmed Dogan with the MRF. The BSP, led by Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, was again in between, left with little reason to celebrate. The big losers were the NMSP, led by former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, who lost the elections catastrophically. The devastating result led to a split within the NMSP and 15 of the party’s MPs went on to form their own group in Parliament. The right-wing showed some signs of recovering from their six years of lethargy and damaging infighting. However, they only managed to win one big city: Pleven.

For Borissov, it all went according to plan. He won his second term in office in Sofia in the first round and his party won a majority in the municipal council. GERB scored successes in other big cities as well, including Plovdiv, Bourgas and Dobrich. The MRF retained its positions and in some places gained more support than expected. For the BSP, it consolation was that they won villages and the small towns, even though they lost the city vote.

Similarly to the MEP elections, Bulgarians showed little interest in choosing their mayors. These elections showed a worrying new trend that in some form had existed before, but never on such a scale.

Buying votes became the fashion of the elections. With the EU funds becoming a reality, more and more business parties joined the race and nominated candidates. The stake was high enough for 4x4 blacked-out vehicles to go around villages and towns and campaigning for one candidate or another.

The law adopted by Parliament with the precise purpose of preventing the buying of votes produced little success. The trend was so obvious that Dogan responded on election night by saying that vote-buying was a “European tendency that should not worry anyone”.