Bulgarians Choose A New Path
The unsurprising landslide victory of the opposition GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) party in Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections on Sunday (July 5) could prove to be the sea-change which many ordinary Bulgarians have been desperately waiting for. In the aftermath of the elections, I believe that the overwhelming support for the three-year old centre-right opposition GERB party has three important implications:
1) As a significant realigning election, this marks a fundamental (and potentially long-term) shift in political ideology.
2) The electorate has chosen market liberalism over populist policies.
3) This is likely to be idiosyncratic in Bulgaria’s case, with parliamentary elections elsewhere in the EU unlikely to result in such a substantial victory for one party and stark rebalancing of the political spectrum.
Though incumbent governments across the board in the EU (and elsewhere in Europe) have suffered at the hands of the international financial crisis and deteriorating economic conditions at home, the outgoing Bulgarian Socialist Party-led coalition government was lagging in the polls long before the crisis caught up with Bulgaria.
Despite presiding over Bulgaria’s accession to the EU in 2007, the BSP failed to raise living standards and rid public and private institutions of endemic corruption, which attracted sharp criticism from Brussels and the suspension of official EU funds. Tired of the BSP’s lackluster leadership and embarrassment over its status as one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the EU, voters proved uncompromising at the polls, with GERB securing a whopping 40% of the vote, compared to a measly 18% for the Socialists.
While certainly a victory for many disgruntled Bulgarians and marking a realignment of domestic political ideology, I do not believe this will pave the way for similar electoral defeats across the EU. Indeed, though in some cases incumbent governments will not survive upcoming elections (Hungary, Ireland and the UK spring to mind), a complete reversal in political ideology would be a long shot at best.
In addition, despite being a positive signal for Bulgaria’s longer-term economic outlook, I would caution that the road to EU convergence and economic prosperity will remain a bumpy one. To be sure, the incoming government is acceding to power at a time of a rapidly unfolding economic recession and rising unemployment, while having to make do with depleted government resources after the BSP started frittering away the coffers in the run-up to the election. If that was not enough to contend with, GERB’s pre-election pledge (and central tenet of its policy platform) to clean up Bulgaria’s corruption-tainted institutions will prove an uphill struggle, and in the meantime could see further official EU funds suspended going forward.