Week in Review: No End of Opportunities, Good and Bad

Third Time Lucky?

The leader of the Bulgarian GERB party, Boyko Borissov speaks during the press conference after the Parliamentary elections in Sofia, Bulgaria, 12 July 2021. According to the latest data from the Parliamentary elections, Slavi Trifonov party 'There is such a folk', is less than half a percent ahead of GERB party with leader Boiko Borissov. EPA-EFE/VASSIL DONEV

Bulgaria is heading to a record third Parliamentary election this year, after the first two - in April and July - delivered fragmented Parliaments in which no parties proved willing or capable of forming a ruling majority. Will this election cycle be any different?

This is the question which our analysis seeks to tackle. Polling data suggests that the previously ruling GERB of Boyko Borissov may be on course for a comeback, but will that make it any easier to form a government? Meanwhile, new political formations are also vying for the ever more splintered vote of the Bulgarian public.

Read more: In Third 2021 General Election, Bulgaria's GERB Eyes Comeback (October 13, 2021)

An Illiberal Turn?

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic delivers a speech during the 3rd Budapest Demographic Summit in Varkert Bazar conference center in Budapest. Photo: EPA-EFE/Szilard Koszticsak

Is Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic taking an illiberal turn, following in the steps of Hungary's Viktor Orban and like-minded politicians from Central and Eastern Europe? Formerly a radical ultra-nationalist, Vucic embraced liberal internationalism upon coming to power in 2012.

Vucic has never instinctively been a social and religious conservative during his political career. Nor has he, deep down, been a liberal internationalist. Yet he has been a...