Bulgaria after April 4 Elections: What Happens Now?

Traditionally, with the exit polls in, this should be an article headlined "Bulgaria's April 2021 parliamentary elections: Winners and losers".

But, quite obviously, going by the headline above, it is not.

Connoisseurs not only of irony but also of recent Bulgarian political history will appreciate the fact that, according to Alpha Research, six per cent of those who turned out this past summer to protest for the resignation of Boiko Borissov's GERB-led government voted, this day April 4 2021, for it to stay in office.

In point of fact, all we may take away from April 4 is that some gained and some lost.

Soon after voting ended, Maya Manolova, a leader of the coalition with the anti-government protest movement The Poison Trio of this past summer, insisted that Borissov's GERB had lost, and that the "protest vote" had won.

Yes, but. Borissov's GERB, although the share of seats projected for it by Alpha Research is 70 compared with the 95 it won in 2017, remains the party with a plurality of seats.

In summer 2020, Manolova put herself front and centre in the anti-government protests. For all that, she will have, if Alpha Research's exit poll is correct, all of 12 seats. Democratic Bulgaria, effectively led by Hristo Ivanov, will have more than twice that, at 28.

Asked live on air by Bulgarian National Television why Ivanov had outdone her formation, Manolova had no clear answer. Nor, she said, would she be willing to be part of a governing coalition, nor seek to form one. (Here's a tip, based on Bulgaria's constitution and law - if all you got was 4.2 per cent, no one is very likely to invite you to form a government; not impossible, but neither very likely).

Compared with 2017, when Borissov's GERB won 95...