Bulgaria is heading towards the first, in its democratic history, 2-in-1 election campaign. Holding elections for President and for parliament on the same date, 14 November, raises certain expectations among the candidates for two of the most important power centres. What will the cost of victory be and which of the two campaigns are going to generate a genuine debate on the problems accumulated in the country, the kind of debate voters have been looking forward to?

Political analyst Tatyana Burudzhieva analyses why the people running for members of parliament are reluctant to talk to one another about what is happening in the country:

“The less the parties engage in dialogue with each other, the fiercer the presidential campaign is going to get. Whether they like it or not, this is a role the presidential candidate will have to assume.”

But there are two other factors explaining why the presidential battle is probably going to be more heated and their weight in the final result of the vote is yet to become clear. On the one hand there is a powerful female presence, mostly as running mates in the presidential race. On the other hand, for the first time in the history of Bulgaria there is an ethnic Turkish presidential candidate – the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, MRF, Mustafa Karadayi. This move by the MRF, as well as the comeback of Delyan Peevski (one of the individuals sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act – editorial note) as a candidate for MP in the 47^th National Assembly, pursues a specific purpose, but these are not moves typical of the party, comments sociologist Andrey Raychev:

“I would like to lay emphasis on the specific background all this is taking place against. The support base of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, MRF, is dwindling. The MRF has so far been able to reach around 50% (of the support of its electorate – editorial note). 50% is around 300,000 people,” Andrey Raychev says. In his words the relations of the other parties with the MRF cannot be like the relations with an ordinary party. “It is our ethnic party, which, I would say we should be happy with because the MRF has never made any attempt to Islamize or Turkify its electorate. The signs are, however, that the party is beginning to get radicalized. That should be a signal to all other players in the political domain to stop stigmatizing and satanizing them, and to be very, very careful.”

The second phenomenon at these presidential elections – the surprising number of women seeking the post of President and Vice President, can be explained with a wish to pour oil on troubled waters in the political debate, but it is also simply as an evolutionary sign, sociologist Mira Radeva says:

“When women start to enter politics on such a scale, that is a process which is part of the overall modernization of our society. On a global scale, many countries where more conservative views are prevalent have had female presidents. I would like to go back to a significant fact – that women in Bulgaria were given the right to vote in 1937, and that is not so long ago.”

However, according to Mira Radeva “the time when a woman will be elected President of Bulgaria has not yet come.” One of the reasons for this can be sought in the still dominant “belligerent patriarchal atmosphere”. It is more noticeable in smaller towns and in villages, where the role of women is perceived very differently than in big cities. Whoever may win the presidential race on 14 November, they will have to clearly define their role as being different from the role of the political parties, as, due to the fact that the elections for President and for National Assembly are taking place at the same time, the differences between the two seem to have become blurred.

“One of the commitments the President has is to raise issues that are important to society, regardless of the interests of the political parties,” says media expert Georgi Lozanov. “The parties, on their part, hold debates with each other, each upholding the interests of their voters. That means two very different functions, but getting them mixed up benefits the parties as well some of the presidential candidates.”

Interviews by Horizont channel and Radio Plovdiv, BNR

Editing by Yoan Kolev