Political Studies ISSUE 1-2, 2019

The article examines the results of the European Parliament elections in Bul- garia in the general context of other European countries. It is argued that these are not key elections, but a symptom of a major change in the political attitudes of European citizens. In Bulgaria, the elections seem to confirm a new trend, beginning with the 2016 presidential election, of a political split not between the supporters of the two major parties but between those who voted for the winner and those who did not vote at all. The hypothesis is that a new political cleavage is emerging.

Bulgaria is so far the only member-state that is reproducing its European Parliament elections results in a third consecutive European election after 2009, both in terms of turnout and in terms of seats distribution among the major political actors, regardless of the variety of crises that have hit the EU since. The paper introduces its own analytical model that re-explores both the SOE and EU sali- ence theories in order to explain the different types of electoral strategies put in place by political actors. The paper is built on a comparative approach exploring data from previous EP elections in Bulgaria.

The article looks at the last election campaign of GERB in its main phases – pre- paratory (preliminary), active and hot. It raises the thesis of the “preservation” campaigns of the party in the recent years. Additionally, the article explores the main actors, platform and messages of the campaign. Special attention is de- voted to the role of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov in the hot phase of the cam- paign and his influence both on the attitudes of the electorate and on the overall dimension of electoral dynamics within the electoral period.

At the beginning of the campaign for the European Parliament elections in Bulgaria, most polls placed the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) either in the first place, or at slight difference after GERB, but in any case, with a real chance of winning this election. Such was the declared objective of the Bulgarian socialists. However, the votes cast on the ballot on May 26, 2019 showed a different picture: BSP ranked second for the fourth consecutive time, with a considerable distance from the first – GERB. The article seeks to answer the question regarding the dimensions and reasons for the results of BSP in the elections. This is done by tracing the overall process of preparing and conducting the campaign, from the formation of the candidate list and the adoption of the election platform, through the course and eatures of the Socialist’s Party campaign. The campaign results are compared with previous results of the Socialists and with the results of the main competitor since 2007 – GERB.

The article analyses the issue of the implementation of new electronic tech- nologies in the electoral process in Bulgaria over the last decade, focusing on the legislative regulation and the implementation of electronic voting in a con- trolled environment (the so-called electronic machine voting) during the Euro- pean Parliament elections in May 2019. In this context, the subject of analysis is the process of adopting legislative amendments in the Electoral Code, which finished before the elections. Deficiencies in the work of the election adminis- tration were also analysed, assessing the Central Election Commission’s activ- ities and the role of the Precinct Election Committees in counting the election results.

This article presents the essence and main features of preferential voting (as a constituent part of the proportional election system) as well as the Bulgarian experience in introducing the preferential vote in electoral practice. Chronolog- ically has been followed the emergence of the pan-European electoral tradition in terms of the formation of the European Parliament – the institution called to ensure the representation of the citizens of the member-states at the level of the European Union. The aim of the analysis is to confirm the inevitable need for a vote with preferences as a necessary component of any proportional system, and in particular for the election of MEPs.

At the European Parliament elections in May 2019, the European citizens voted on how the European Union should move ahead over in the next five years. In times of crisis, fake news, populism, sharp political opposition, and the constant search for a single European approach to the problems and challenges of the day, voters have shown that they want the people to whom they have delegated power, to act with wisdom, capacity for dialogue and compromise and, above all, show clear results. This article is an attempt for a recap of the results of the European Parliament elections. Special focus is put on Bulgaria, as well as on the debate on the election of the President of the European Commission.

This article is the result of a media monitoring conducted in the run-up to the 2019 European elections. Led by the maxim that “dialogue is at the root of democratic governance,” we decided to trace whether Bulgarian politicians used elements of hate speech during the campaign for European elections in 2019 and how was this reflected in the media.The monitoring of keywords and messages reflecting the crisis with the political speech and use of abusive vocabulary in Bulgaria was carried out during the hot phase of the election campaign of the European elections from 26th April to 25th May 2019. For this purpose, we followed the morning blocks of the three national televisions, the main political programs, the evening issues, as well as the deliberately organized debates within the BNT, BTV and Nova TV. The subject of the study was the information published in 22 electronic editions of major national daily newspapers and news agencies.The social networks “Facebook” and “Twitter” were also subject to moni- toring as they are one of the main conductors and distributors of hate speech to different groups of people and are increasingly being used as an information channel by politicians who want their messages to reach as quickly as possible a wide range of people.

This text focuses on the politicisation of the topic of migration in Bulgaria in the period between the European elections of 2014 and 2019, which coincides with the period of the migratory crisis and the consequences thereof. As opposed to the classic understanding of politicization, in Bulgaria the process occurs in the conditions of dominating populist discourse with extremely conservative and nationalistic talk and securitarian interpretation. All this has entailed the impossibility to devise and implement working policies in the realm of migration and integration and in reality, places the security of the state in a potentially much more precarious future situation.