Faced with the prices of energy and exploding food products, Bulgarian voters are called again in the polls.
Le Monde with AFP
For the fourth time in a year and a half, the Bulgarians vote, Sunday October 2, with a subject in all the heads as winter approaches: the surge of prices on the background of war in Ukraine. If endemic corruption occupied the debates of the last legislative elections, economic insecurity has, this time, dominated the campaign while inflation borders on 20 % in this country of the poorest Balkans of the European Union.
“These are the prices that concern voters, much more than the geostrategic subjects that stir the parties,” said expert Antony Todorov, of the new Bulgarian university. Studies show “a fear of winter”, to fall into misery in front of the heating prices and exploding food products.
In this anxiety-provoking climate, ex-Prime Minister Boïko Borissov, 63, is doing well: the opinion institutes place his conservative party Gerb in first position, with 25 % of the voting intentions. With his experience from a decade in power, he promised on Friday, during the last gathering of his sympathizers in Plovdiv, in the surf of the country, to defeat “chaos”, to “work for the stability of the country”.
Specter of political instability
Despite a delay in nine points in the polls, his centrist rival Kiril Petkov wants to believe it and “continue the change”, name of his training. This former 42-year-old entrepreneur trained at Harvard, who appeared in 2021 on the Bulgarian political scene, ruled seven little months before being overthrown by a censure motion.
In an interview with the France-Presse agency, he welcomes himself to have tackled “corruption practices”, his workhorse, to redistribute money to the youngest and retirees, but “he remains a lot of work “. “The challenge consists in choosing between a European, progressive and transparent Bulgaria, and a return to the years of political corruption,” he summarizes, in an ultimate call to voters. He firmly excludes an alliance with Mr. Borissov, his sworn enemy, causing the spectrum of a pursuit of political instability, unprecedented since the end of communism in 1989.
the King’s prorussians ?
The Gerb party declares itself “open to all”. “I don’t think they go back to power, they are too isolated,” comments Mr. Todorov. “The situation is critical, Bulgaria needs a government, but not at any cost,” he said.
For political scientist Gueorgui Kiriakov, Boïko Borissov could however ally himself with the Turkish minority party MDL and the Vazrajdane formation (“Renaissance”), ultra -nationalist and close to the Kremlin, whose “behavior will be decisive”. Credited from 11 % to 14 % of the vote, this movement has grown in power since the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, in a country with strong historical, economic and cultural links with Moscow.
Serial political crises block reforms, slow down growth and accelerate the exodus of young people in this country which has already lost a tenth of its population in a decade.