Anti-Graft Party Wins Bulgarian Elections With Vow to End Crisis

(Bloomberg) --

A new party pledging to stamp out endemic graft and organized crime in the European Union’s most corrupt nation won Bulgaria’s elections and vowed to create a ruling coalition to end a more than year-long political crisis.

In the Balkan country’s third go at a parliamentary ballot this year, the Continuing the Change party, known as PP, defeated the Gerb party of former Premier Boyko Borissov, who until he was ousted in April was one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders and the dominant force in Bulgarian politics.

PP won 25.65% of Sunday’s vote, compared with 22.8% for Gerb, according to official results with 99.51% of ballots counted. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms was third with 12.92%.

PP’s victory may break a political deadlock that has exacerbated the struggles of the EU’s poorest member, which has one of the bloc’s lowest Covid vaccination rates and one of the world’s highest pandemic death tolls on a per capita basis. Inconclusive votes in April and July also delayed the approval of badly needed recovery aid from the EU, which has kept the nation of 7 million outside of its passport-free Schengen zone due in part to endemic corruption.

PP co-founder Kiril Petkov declared victory and said the party will start talks as early as this week with other groups that made it into parliament including Democratic Bulgaria and ITN, a party led by pop-folk star Slavi Trifonov. But it will exclude Gerb and the MRF, a party that mostly represents the Turkish minority that, along with Borissov’s, has been accused of tolerating graft.

“Our only conditions are we have to stop this corruption,” Petkov, who served in a previous interim government and will be his party’s nominee for premier, said after voting ended.

One potential sticking point is that a potential PP partner, Democratic Bulgaria, has refused to work with the Socialists, the reformed heirs of the Soviet-era Communist Party that has traded power with Borissov and other rivals since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

If they fail to form a cabinet three times, that would trigger a new snap election next year. Paralysis could delay the approval of the 2022 budget, further hinder talks to secure EU money and hamper efforts for Bulgaria to get a grip on its deepening struggle with Covid.

“The election result offers a decent possibility of breaking the long-standing political deadlock and forming a majority government led by PP,” said Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe adviser at Teneo Intelligence. He added, however, that the diverse makeup of the coalition may make it difficult to survive a full four-year term.

Continued deadlock would obscure Bulgaria’s already complicated push to win membership in the euro area. While Borissov has tried to pave the way for swapping levs for euros for years, there may be little political will among the euro-sharing nations to accept new members.

In a separate presidential ballot, incumbent Rumen Radev won the first round of a voting with 49.45%. Radev, a bitter rival to Borissov, will face Gerb candidate Anastas Gerdzhikov in a Nov. 21 runoff for the largely ceremonial post.

“I believe this time the parties will overcome their differences in the name of our future and will form a sustainable majority,” Radev, who is responsible for appointing a party to lead coalition talks, told reporters in Sofia.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.