Bulgarian left seeks election comeback

Bulgarian voters went to the polls Sunday after a tight election race pitting Socialists seen as closer to Russia against two-times centre-right premier Boyko Borisov, seeking another comeback. Opinion polls in the European Union’s poorest country, where the average monthly salary is just 500 euros ($540) and corruption is rife, also indicate a strong showing by nationalists.

The karate-kicking Borisov’s enthusiastically pro-European Union GERB party and the Socialist Party (BSP), newly led by the energetic Kornelia Ninova, are both seen garnering around 30 percent. “I voted for a stable, predictable and united Bulgaria,” Borisov said after casting his ballot, adding: “Bulgarians must decide today who is fit to lead this kind of politics so let them choose.” Socialist chief Ninova denied that her party’s perceived Russian sympathies would have any impact in power. “No foreign country, eastern or western, should be allowed to influence Bulgarian politics,” she said.

In the ex-communist nation’s third election in four years, many voters are turning away from the main parties towards groups on the fringes, or are not bothering to vote. “The big parties are totally disconnected from the reality of what is going on in Bulgaria and that is outright irresponsible,” said IT worker Alexander Naydenov, 35. “That is why I voted for one of the smaller parties with the hope that they can act as a balance to the big ones.”

Borisov, 57, once a bodyguard for Bulgaria’s last communist leader, has long been the dominant figure in national politics, serving as premier from 2009 to 2013 and again from 2014 to 2017. In between, the BSP was in power for barely a year. Both times Borisov quit early, first in 2013 after mass protests and then last November after his candidate for the presidency was beaten by an air force general backed by the BSP.

‘Second-class member’

If Ninova can become premier this raises the prospect of NATO member Bulgaria, which has long walked a tightrope between East and West, drifting more towards Moscow. Ninova has said she is not content with Bulgaria being a “second-class member” of the EU and that she will veto an extension of EU sanctions on Russia. Russia, with which Bulgaria has long had close cultural and economic ties, has been accused of seeking to expand its influence in other Balkan countries in recent months. But Borisov has also said that he wants more “pragmatic” ties with Russia and Ninova, 48, insists that she remains committed to the EU. —AFP