FT: Pop Star’s Anti-Elite Party Wins Bulgarian Election

Bulgaria's anti-establishment There is Such a People party (ITN) had no rallies, no posters, no canvassing, no candidates and no real programme to speak of. Now the whole country may be about to experience the same of its next leader. The charisma of Slavi Trifonov, a bald and tough-looking pop star, was enough for ITN to win almost a quarter of the vote in last weekend's elections, making him the likely leader of Bulgaria's next coalition government. Yet Trifonov, who plays a hard-charging "turbo folk" genre called chalga, seems to want to convert his anti-campaign into an anti-politics governing platform as well.

"We will take independent responsibility and form our own cabinet," the 54-year-old said when he appeared on ITN's small cable television channel on Monday, apparently ruling out any chance that Bulgaria would form a stable coalition government. Trifonov, who grew up in rural Bulgaria and is the youngest of four siblings, added that he hoped that ITN would form a new government "as soon as possible" and try to go it alone.

If that did not work out, analysts said that fresh elections might have to be called. With almost all the ballots counted, the final results of the election are still too close to call.

It looks as if ITN has won roughly 23.9 per cent of the vote, just ahead of the conservative Gerb party of former prime minister Boyko Borisov, with 23.7 per cent. Borisov, 62, is so disliked after his 12-year dominance of Bulgarian politics, a time marred by corruption scandals, that he will be unable to form a coalition government.

But Trifonov, who has also fronted for the Bulgarian punk band Ku Ku, does not seem to wants to form a coalition government. The rationale for this, explained the host of Bulgaria's most popular...