Политически изследвания Брой 1-2, 2016

The presidential elections of 2016 produced a new situation in Bulgarian politics, but did not change substantially the Bulgarian party system. The victory of the non-partisan candidate proposed by the BSP and the failure of the candidate of the ruling party was unexpected and was significant for the “depolitization” of the society. Citizens in Bulgaria expressed their limited support for the main parties, looking for a candidate who has not previous partisan career. This seems to be a sign for more serious civic disaffection from the existing parties.

The article tracks all aspects of the presidential candidacy of Roumen Radev: the process of his nomination, campaign and performance. Subject of detailed analysis is the campaign of the candidate in its various aspects - organization, party support, financing, direct campaign, media appearances, participation in election debates. The author presents a picture of his convincing victory in the presidential elections in Bulgaria in 2016. On the background of broader economic, social, political, cultural context during the campaign and election are shown the internal factors that led to this result – the effective support by the party BSP, the personal and political qualities of the candidate, the campaign performance.

The article has a double objective: to analyze the campaign of the nationalist candidate in the presidential election 2016, as well as populist-nationalist discourses and messages of non-nationalist candidates. It is structured in three parts. The first offers a periodization of the nationalist vote and analyzes the campaign as a happening of Krassimir Karakachanov, the candidate of the United Patriots. The second introduces the symbolic cartography of the nationalist campaigns, introducing a diachronic perspective and comparing the messages and images of the presidential campaigns of the two sympathetic nationalist candidates - Volen Siderov and Krassimir Karakachanov. The third part introduces a synchronic comparative perspective by identifying nationalist messages of non-nationalist candidates. The main thesis and conclusion of the analysis is the tendency of hegemonization of the nationalist discourse, crossing the classical ideological cleavages.

The text examines the campaigns and results of the presidential elections of the right-wing candidates in Bulgaria. The reasons for the surprising failure of the candidate of the largest GERB party Tsetska Tsacheva and the poor result of the candidate of the Reformist bloc Traicho Traikov are being sought. In the first case the focus is on the late rise of the GERB candidate, on the lack of personal charisma, conceptual appearance and clear cut political values. In the second case, besides the personality and campaign of the candidate, the deep division among the right parties played a part. None of the candidates on the right offered authenticity to Bulgarian citizens.

The present study analyses the presidential electoral campaigns of Ivaylo Kalfin, candidate supported by a coalition of parties around the party „Alternative for Bulgarian Revival“, and of Tatiana Doncheva, supported by the coalition ”Move- ment -21” and “National Movement for Stability and Progress”. Both of them are known personalities, confirmed politicians with their expertise, qualities of technocrats and with their criticism against the ramping populism and the risks of authoritarian and undemocratic tendencies. Despite their qualities and professional electoral campaigns, they didn’t’ have room to successfully challenging the strong protest antiestablishment and populist candidates at the first round of the presidential election held on November 6th 2016. Furthermore, they are positioned and known as politicians on the center and center-left where one of the main political forces – the Bulgarian Socialist Party raised and supported a candidate who have never been a politician, offered the alternative of a “new face” in politics and aggregated the protest vote against the GERB party. Voices of expertise, experience and professionalism have been muted by the populist candidates.

In the 2016 presidential elections, there were 21 presidential candidates, for more than half them it was clear that they had no real chance to be elected. This article analyzes what motivates these candidates to get into the presidential race. For this purpose, a proposal of a typology of the candidates and their campaigns was made. Special zoom was put on Veselin Mareshki, whose participation in this election was both underestimated, but also a request for a more stable place on the political scene.

The article focuses on three dimensions of the issues related to the rule of law and the judicial system reform in the context of the presidential elections in Bulgaria in 2016: the formulation of a clear vision for future development of the judicial reform and strengthening of the rule of law in the candidate’s manifestos, the level of participation of candidates in the political and civic debate on the issues and the type of commitments expressed during the campaign. Thus the article aims to formulate a typology of campaign related positions on the basis of two dimensions – political profile of candidate and their distance to bringing the issues as priorities of the presidential institution.

The study is analyzing the presidential election campaign through the place and level of topicality given to the social problematic in the pre-election debates. By doing this, the study follows in the train of several research tasks that allow the systematic analysis of the leading political topics and themes in the pre-election debates. First one is, to describe the specific political accents and topics, which dominated the pre-election campaign and to underline the factors that contributed to their domination. The second task is, to analyze the degree of importance and the way of articulation of the social problematic in the pre-election campaign.

The current article focuses on the foreign economic priorities of the President of Republic of Bulgaria, with particular attention to the realities and opportunities of these priorities. The research focuses on three directions of foreign economic activity. The first one covers the acceleration of the application process for membership in the Eurozone as an imperative for Bulgaria to speed up its preparations for accession to the zone of the single European currency otherwise facing the risk of falling behind in the process of decision-making in the EU. It is an obvious fact that after the «Brexit» United Europe needs a new impetus to the process of European integration in order to boost and regain the trust of European citizens in the European institutions. The second priority is the preparation of Bulgaria for a full membership in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Bulgaria currently holds the status of “guest” in the structure of the Organization therefore not being able to actively contribute to more open market economy, democratic pluralism and respect for human rights in the international economic relations. As a third accent in the foreign economic activity is pointed out a more active participation in EU’s trade policy within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which is a factor for sustainable and intelligent economic growth as well as for stimulating the Bulgarian economy.

During the president election campaign in 2016 a clear fact emerged: the candidates demonstrated basic lack of understanding about the competence, the functions, role and relevance of the institution. The narrative during the race presented a deeper misunderstanding of what the candidates think the President of Bulgaria actually works. The variations on the theme became the main reason for this text, which sets the difficult task not only to unveil the real nature of the presidential institution, but to go even further - to offer a recipe for modernizing the institution in accord with contemporary needs an institutional framework in Bulgaria.

The article deals with the history of the emergence of the vice-president institution in the Bulgarian constitutional model, the motives for its creation, as well as its functions and specifics. The position of the author is that this institution in a parliamentary system and devoid of own functions is unnecessary. The role of the vice presidential candidates in election campaigns is also being monitored.

The article discusses the election process in Bulgaria in 2016. It is conditionally divided into two parts. The first is related to legislative changes that take place in the middle of the year, while the second examines the results of these changes that occur in the form of electoral violations and irregularities between the promulgation of the election date until the final outcome of the vote. This approach shows the existence of connection between the individual events as often irregularities in the election process are caused by changes in the electoral legislation.