Bulgarian Parliamentary Election, 2013 [May 12]

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On May 12 all 240 seats of the National Assembly of Bulgaria will be up for election. The election was originally scheduled to be held in July, but nationwide protests and self-immolations convinced the prime minister resign and hold elections earlier. The protests were primarily over the creation of government-sponsored monopolies and corruption. Other contentious issues include Bulgaria's membership in the European Union, energy independence and improving the standards of living in Bulgaria.

In order to achieve energy independence, a referendum was held on January 27, 2013 on the construction of a nuclear power plant. The referendum passed with 61.49% of the vote. Voter turnout for the referendum was less than the necessary 60%, resulting in the referendum becoming non-binding. In other words, the government is not legally required to abide by the results of the referendum. Some organizations, such as Greenpeace, have opposed the construction of a nuclear power plant.

The last parliamentary election [in 2009] resulted in the centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party winning 39.7% and 117 seats in the National Assembly. The centre-left Bulgarian Socialist Party won 17.7% of the vote and 40 seats in the National Assembly. Other parties won the remainder of the seats in the previous general election. Opinion polls for the upcoming election have been fluctuating, with most current polls predicting another victory for Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria.

Will the Bulgarian Socialist Party return to government? Will construction of the nuclear power plant continue as normal? Will the nationalistic Attack party continue to gain traction? What do you think this election will yield? Please use this thread to discuss anything pertaining to the upcoming election and it's aftermath.

 

Strange.

 

How so?

 

Why are you on about the Bulgarian elections? What interest or stake do you have in that? It makes me wonder if you do really actually care about UK politics, or just creating a thread for the hell of it.

 

Actually Barmy... the UKIP were running a scare campaign about Bulgarian immigrants at one stage (maybe still are), I suppose naturally the UKIP would take at least some interest in Bulgarian politics, and hope, if not help a party with a similar ideology get into power. I think the closest thing to the UKIP in Bulgaria would be the Order, Law and Justice party (populist, conservative).

 

Because it's friggin' Bulgaria. I know a little about the politics of western European countries. Not a lot, but I can identify the PMs/Presidents in nations like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, etc. However, I think it's fair to say I know next to nothing about the politics in most eastern European nations. And I don't think it's because I'm an uninformed isolationist American who is only interested in the politics of his own nation. I think most people outside of the immediate vicinity of Bulgaria know very little about Bulgarian politics.

Here's what I know about Bulgaria - it's in the southern part of east Europe bordering on the Black Sea. That's it. I don't know if they're in the EU, I don't know what currency they use, I don't know the ethnicity of the people who live within Bulgaria and I know nothing of the state of their politics. I can honestly say I cannot recall the last time I saw a news article (online, in print or televised) concerning Bulgaria. And I watch/read tons of news.

So, despite considering myself a fairly well-informed person concerning world events, I can't possibly develop a well-established opinion on Bulgarian politics or policies based on a few paragraphs that you wrote about above. And I imagine it's much the same story for the vast majority of people who post on these forums. I mean, really, how many people outside of Bulgaria can actually list items on the platforms of these various political parties? Or heck - how many people outside of Bulgaria can even name the major political parties in Bulgaria?

 

The government of Bulgaria is so horribly corrupt that it's actually a state that should never have been admitted to the European Union. I don't know much of the state of its national politics but hopefully they will elect a government that is not in bed with the local mafia and manages to clean up the system enough for them to remove their reputation of a "European banana republic".

I won't be holding my breath though.

 

Building a bit on Aldeth's post, it wouldn't be so strange if the topic was started by someone from Bulgaria, or from a nation likely to be impacted in some way by Bulgarian elections or politics; that, however, is likely a relatively small number of SP members. But for someone from the US to start the thread just seems odd, particularly since you know (or at least should know) that the response rate is likely to be very low (aside from posts essentially saying "WTF?")

 

I for one find Eastern Europe very fascinating in many respects. I also find international politics to be rather intriguing. Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity for you to read up on Bulgarian politics, so we can have a discussion, or even a debate?

 

Or maybe it's the perfect opportunity for you to get a life.

 

Oh, I find eastern European history to be fascinating. It's been a war torn region for about 1000 years now. (Not continuous, but no long periods of peace either.) And given that my heritage is from eastern Europe I can't say that I'm completely unconcerned with what goes on there either. It just seems to me that there are probably elections going on every month every where in the world, and to just pick out Bulgaria, out of the blue, to talk about seemed odd.

 

True, there are elections all over the world all the time. Seeing as Bulgaria is in Europe, however, I figured that most people would have more to contribute, especially since we have a lot of European members here. I intend to make threads for elections in other countries in the future.

By the way, the centre-right CERB party won the election, but didn't win enough seats to form a majority government. Now they can either enter a coalition, form a minority government or hold new elections.

 

My "guess" on what everyone is thinking is this... why start that topic here? Why not on a site that would have informed people to talk about it with?

 

I'm not sure there are forums on Eastern European politics, at least not in English. I could be wrong though.

I also love polls. Post a poll on one community, then on another community, and the results are often times completely different. Fascinating.

 

We never would have guessed.