Politics in Bulgaria: shifting from a conservative government to a progressive one
It is not a mystery that politics, whether we like it or not, have become a major issue both in media and in our daily lives. Staying away from politics is practically impossible in this modern, globalized, world. While lots of European countries have had general elections recently, or are preparing to have them pretty soon, the U.S is also on the spot for regional elections, that can have a big impact on the future general ones. It is, precisely, in the smaller places where the future of a country can be determined: shifts in ideology for the ruling parties in government can depend on the smaller, isolated and ignored voters.
In Bulgaria, a country of small towns and even smaller villages, this can really mean something on next year’s national elections. GERB, a conservative, “center-right”, populist party, has won the past four national elections. But this can change if younger generations from small towns and villages start voting. They are the ones who have the power to change governmental ideology, not the people from big cities. But, how do local elections in a small Bulgarian town work? To understand this system I interviewed Tsvetana Haydushka, who used to work for the cultural department in the municipality of Blagoevgrad, a small town 100km south of Sofia (the capital).
Let’s take that town as a case of study. Blagoevgrad and its 13 surrounding villages add to around 81.000 residents. There are two types of residents in this municipality: the ones with temporary address (like students who live there just to study in one of its two universities) and permanent residents (the ones who have been “proved” to live there for the most part of the year). Only permanent residents have the right to vote in Blagoevgrad’s elections.
When it comes to voting, Blagoevgrad’s permanent residents have to vote for two things: to choose a candidate for mayor of the town and to choose either a specific candidate or a party to represent them in the municipal council (the equivalent of a parliament: they vote to approve local laws, handle the annual budget, form temporary and permanent commissions, etc.) in what is called “preferential voting”, a right that was approved in 2007. Once the mayor is elected, he or she will address the deputy mayors (the equivalent of the ministers), based on his or her goals to develop the new municipality’s politics. Deputy mayors can also be part of the municipal council if they are chosen by the voters or by their party (when chosen by the voters as well).
But, what about the smaller villages that are also under the ruling of this municipality? Villages who have less than 350 residents are not considered to meet the requirements to held mayor elections. Instead, they have to vote for a mayor assistant who depends on the bigger municipality. Mayor assistants can be independent local candidates from the villages (who are not affiliated to any party) or candidates that are proposed by the bigger parties in the municipality (although municipality by law should not be based on any political party and it should stay away from any political announcements). This means that the voters from the bigger town can have an influence over the smaller villages management but the residents from those villages cannot decide what they want for the bigger town. This can derive, for example, on measures to help an isolated Roma community located in one of the villages never being implemented (even if the local people from the village want to) because of the votes of conservative voters from the bigger town.
And, how does this attach to the bigger picture? In the past elections, that were held on October 27th, an unusual thing happened in Blagoevgrad: 12 candidates run for mayor, five of them with a really strong social support. In the end, there was only a 5% of difference in votes between the first (who presented himself as an independent candidate but ended up being affiliated to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, or BSP, GERB’s biggest opponent) and the second candidate (affiliated to GERB). This meant that they had to go to a second round, on November 3rd, which ended up in a 53–47 (vote percentage) victory for BSP. Almost sixty percent of Blagoevgrad’s residents participated in these elections, which is a massive percentage for a small Bulgarian town.
However, the change in the municipality has not been a smooth transition of power. Corruption is also one of the issues that is very present in local elections. Blagoevgrad’s current mayor, Rumen Tomov, has been sued by the previous mayor, Atanas Kambitov, for owning a company (according to Bulgarian law, public figures in any kind of government cannot own a private enterprise). He was judged on January 14th, in Blagoevgrad, and the trial escalated onto a bigger one that was held in Sofia on March 11th. Possible new elections will be announced 14 days after that date if the new mayor is found guilty.
So, how can politics in a small-town change onto more progressive matters and, eventually, have an impact on national politics? It is really a matter of the younger generations being aware of the importance of voting. There is no public data available about the percentage of participation for people between 18 and 25 years old in the last elections, held on March 26 2017, but, according to Haydushka, that demographic “doesn’t really” show an interest in voting.
The generation that was born between 2000 and 2003 could not vote on the previous election but they will be able to vote on the next one, in May 2021. Most of them are likely to have a more open mentality towards ending corruption, guaranteeing human rights and promoting LGTBQ inclusion, for example, because they have been born and raised into the globalized internet era. At the same time, some of the elder conservative voters will pass away. Both things combined can have an impact on local and national politics shifting from a more conservative government to a more open minded, progressive country.
Things can really change in a matter of one or two elections.
