Bulgaria votes in presidential runoff amid anti-corruption agenda
Bulgarians have begun voting to elect their president, a
largely ceremonial role that the current incumbent has transformed and put at
the heart of the struggle against corruption in the European Union’s poorest
country.
Incumbent President Rumen Radev, the frontrunner with 49
percent in the first round of voting last weekend, faces off on Sunday against
academic Anastas Gerdjikov after neither could secure an outright majority.
While Radev, a former fighter pilot, is the country’s most
popular politician, Bulgaria itself is riven by fractious political parties
that have failed to deliver a stable government needed to tackle deep-seated
corruption and the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
A clear win for Radev, 58, may usher in a period of
political stability after last weekend’s surprise victory in the third general
election this year of a new anti-graft party.
We Continue the Change now hopes to find coalition partners
to end six months of political deadlock that have drawn out the worst political
crisis since the end of communism 30 years ago.
But while Gerdjikov, also 58, only drew 23 percent in the
first round, the University of Sofia rector is backed by the GERB party of
former conservative premier Boyko Borisov, which came a close second in the
general election.
Gerdjikov will also probably garner strong support from the
nation’s sizeable Turkish minority, comprising about nine percent of the seven
million population.
The Turkish MRF party has been allied with GERB and has been
snubbed by We Continue the Change in coalition talks.
Analysts also say that voter apathy might make the win more
difficult for Radev, who was backed by the Socialists for his first five-year
term but now runs as an independent.
Only 40 percent of those eligible turned out for the first
round last Sunday, and lacking a party machine the former air force chief of
staff depends on a broad spectrum of backers.
These include We Continue the Change, whose founders –
Harvard graduates Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev – served as ministers in the
first interim administration Radev appointed in May after the inconclusive
April poll.
Radev had supported the protests against Borisov’s 10-year
rule last summer, shouting “Mafia out!” with his fist raised in the air as he
briefly joined the crowd.
He has also turned around perceptions that he is
pro-Russian, said Gallup analyst Parvan Simeonov.
“Radev is no longer considered a Moscow man,” he said.
In a presidential debate on Thursday, Radev said he
regretted most that he “didn’t manage to contribute to the toppling of
Borisov’s regime sooner”.
The end of Borisov’s reign marked the beginning of the
political deadlock, and that has coincided with an onslaught of the coronavirus
in the EU member with the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate and one of the
world’s highest pandemic mortality rates.
The second caretaker administration Radev appointed when
parties failed yet another attempt to form a government after polls in July was
strongly criticised for its poor handling of the outbreak.
The country has struggled to roll out jabs in the face of
strong anti-vaccination sentiment and prolific fake news.
Both interim administrations did, however, win plaudits for
an avalanche of revelations about corruption, fraud and mismanagement under
Borisov, which Gallup analyst Svetlin Tachev said “played in Radev’s favour”.
New Bulgarian University political science professor Antoniy
Todorov summed up the vote as “a clash between two visions” in the eastern
European country.
It is one between “the soft tolerance of endemic corruption
and the firm opposition to a model of governance that uses public power for
private purposes,” Todorov wrote in a blog post this week.
Sunday’s polls, which opened at 7am (05:00 GMT), were due to
close at 18:00 GMT with the first exit poll results due shortly afterwards.
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