Yes, there are all sorts of political animals in the political universes of small Balkan states. The above-mentioned octo-partite coalition has become the buzz word and the butt of sarcastic jokes on the eve of the Bulgarian parliamentary elections.

Theorists define the political context of the Bulgarian transition with the seemingly innocuous term of “partial state capture” (see authors such as Joel Hellman or Andrew Barnes), or a situation where powerful economic structures become political clients on the receiving end of a redistribution of state assets from “the people” to the new “free market actors”(namely the economic groups). On Bulgarian talk shows and forums this situation is referred to as oligarchy.

Bearing this context in mind it is easier to comprehend the theatre that played itself out this spring, when the political elite realized that the European and the Bulgarian parliamentary elections were scheduled only a month apart. In February from the EU came suggestions to merge both elections to the same date since, as the leader of the EPP-ED (European People’s Party) Wilfred Martens reportedly said, it is not acceptable to hold elections during the summer months - no one in Europe holds elections in July and August. The cost of two rounds of elections in the throes of a financial crisis was also not to underestimate. Bulgarian politics, however, chose the irrational path: as far as the season is concerned, the electorate that can still afford a vacation only serves certain political goals, maybe not those of the current power-holders; and as far as the money is concerned, and considering the above-mentioned state capture theory, adding the hurdle of two campaigns, although not eliminating all of the opposition, can eliminate some. Moreover, to add a cynical tinge, nobody likes a high voter turnout - that is when the vote that is bought pays off the least.

This was not enough of an insurance for the incumbents, however. When President Parvanov proposed an electoral reform with the goal of more transparency and more proximity to the voter (including thresholds for participation and contributions accountability, as well as a majoritarian element), he saw his proposal devolve into two extremely arbitrary measures - an 8% threshold for coalitions, and 31 majority candidates from non-equitably weighted districts. The two measures also curiously well served the incumbent tri-partite coalition facing a very fragmented opposition which had the prospects of forming a big coalition. After the constitutional court repealed the coalitions threshold, a frantic scrambling for the distribution of majoritarian positions ensued: it was a way to ensure staying “on the power train”.

The Independent newspaper Kapital honoured the electoral occasion with a novel campaign: a one-hour long questionnaire for the economic experts of each of the 8 most-popular parties candidates for parliament, the process of filling out being filmed and documented on the Kapital website. I personally loved the idea and could not wait to summarise the pearls of wisdom that this experiment produced for the readers of TOL.

The question on the first 100-days priority got a unanimous answer: recalibrate the budget (after all, the current Bulgarian budget stands calculated for a 4,5% rate of growth in a heavy recession year like 2009, when instead the IMF projects a 2% rate for Bulgaria; the government refused to recalculate in January with the argument that it would send “a bad signal” to the world). The majority party in the current government, however, the Socialists, only settled on it after a pause: “We will have to elect the Cabinet first actually!”, exclaims the Minister for Economy and Energy. Fortunately, he is interrupted by a colleague, “It won’t take us a hundred days to do that though!”

the BSP evaluated themselves at 5 on a scale of 6

The three biggest infrastructural projects question was also easy: the three unfinished Bulgarian highways. Unfinished because the money always gets lost. The incumbent Socialist experts permit themselves a joke, “let’s not promise those again because we might not complete them again!.”

The biggest failure of the Stanishev government in this connection is namely the embezzlement of European structural funds on the SAPARD, PHARE, and ISPA cohesion programmes, which was revealed last July and led to an unprecedented sanction by the European Commission, whereby 850 ml Euro on these programmes was frozen, 220 ml of which can never be unfrozen. With this Stoimen Chakalov of the Bulgarian-speaking blog legal world underlines that one has arrived at the absurd situation that at the end of its second year poor Bulgaria became a net contributor to the EC, with 1,1bn contributed since 2007. The Bulgarian Socialist Party could not fail to comment on this: “not enough capacity to monitor the assimilation of the money.” The upshoots from GERB (Citizens for European Dvelopment of Bulgraria) also talk about the Socialist-led government’s oligarchic methods, and liken them to the situation in Montenegro; but then add, “at least in Montenegro their coast is not overconstructed yet, there is still sand.”

GERB's team of stars

GERB have enlisted Simeon Dyankov, an ex-high profile official at the World Bank, who never seems to know the right word in Bulgarian, and always wants to tax the rich. The former is in fact a chronic trait for all of the experts, to the extent that the third incumbent coalition partner, NDSV (National Movement Simeon II, the exiled king party) do not know what “headquarters” is in Bulgarian when they ponder over the question of “what headline would you like to see in Kapital after 4 years in government?” They wish for IBM to have moved its headquarters (the Bulgarian word is  prompted by journalists) to the provincial town of Plovdiv (and not Sofia, in the interest of financial decentralization, another unfulfilled promise). As for taxing the rich, Dyankov’s attempt at Western-type socialism is quenched by the reminder: “if the judiciary does its job, we won’t need to.”

the Blue Coalition for a complete sweep

The Blue Coalition make plenty of interesting references to scandals of the past four years such as cutting costs out of the “Russian investment projects,” and the Socialist government’s attempt to control the media through the media buy-out of Irena Krysteva.

There is no agreement as to when Bulgaria is to integrate into the eurozone, and neither can the BSP remember what date they put in their programme for that. The DPS (the Turkish Minority Party) think there can be a leeway in this matter through some kind of persuasion, especially since most countries in the Eurozone do not observe their own Stability Pact in terms of their deficit limits; and the Blues make it their positive headline wish.

The octipartite coalition is mentioned as the Socialists’ do-not-want-to-see-in-four-years headline. In fact, a wiki article details very well the BSP’s stance and how its pre-election manoeuvres were geared towards an “either no Blue-Gerb government, or an octi-partite coalition (=disaster)” - an interesting take on the past couple of months.

This leads me to fear that the real games are only just going to begin after this coming electoral Sunday.