Predictions a Fool’s Game in Post-Election, Pre-Election Bulgaria

Uncertainty is the only certainty in Bulgarian politics these days.

Since an inconclusive election on April 4, both the winner - long-time ruling party GERB - and the second-placed upstarts 'There's Such a Nation' have failed to cobble together a majority in parliament, meaning the baton will pass to the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP.

The BSP is anathema to many oppositionists in Bulgaria due to its roots in the now-defunct Communist Party, its conservative values and pro-Russian politics.

President Rumen Radev, a critic of GERB's rule, will offer the BSP the mandate to form a government on May 5. It looks unlikely to succeed, with party leader Kornelia Ninova saying admitting as much on May 1. "Everyone is against everyone," she said. "No one could calm their ego."

Instead, a caretaker cabinet - known in Bulgaria as an 'expert' cabinet - will take the reins until a fresh election can be held in the summer.

But while the BSP has scant hope of forming a government, the party stands to benefit from the power now vested in Radev, whom the BSP backed for president and who will pick the caretaker cabinet.

Alexei Lazarov, the managing editor of Capital Weekly, said that, politically at least, Bulgaria had entered a wilderness, with no one in full control.

"Until the next elections take place - and probably for sometime after - power will be concentrated in the president. This is one of the few relatively clear things about the foreseeable political future," Lazarov wrote in the latest issue of Capital Weekly. 

"If someone tells you they know what will happen in Bulgarian politics in the coming months, do not believe a word of it," he wrote. "The actions of the main players - including the decisions that...

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