Local elections in Bulgaria

A TOUGH BATTLE FOR LOCAL DOMINATION

AIM Sofia, 11.10.1999.

A week before the voting day in local elections, the ruling coalition United Democratic Forces (ODS) has a chance to win in about 50% of municipalities and to take over the power from representatives of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). The battle between the blue and the red at the local level is tougher than it has ever been and is fought with a rich arsenal of armory

• ranging from moral discreditation of individual candidates to murders. The worst predictions do not exclude the possibility of a forge of election results, something already a bit forgotten in Bulgaria.

Although in national elections two years ago the ruling majority in Bulgaria was altered, under the pressure of a mass disappointment in Zan Videnov's government, the local government has remained red. The last local elections - in 1995 - were organized under the BPS rule, when the socialists legalized their power at all levels of government. The same goal is now set forward by the politicians from the ruling right-wing parties.

According to latest opinion polls, candidates from the ODS - a coalition founded on the basis of the Alliance of Democratic Forces - will get as many votes as all their opponents together. At the moment, voters are equally divided in three groups: those supporting the ODS, those favoring other parties and candidates and those who still have not made their mind or will not cast the ballot at all.

The ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, following the already established trend, will not have any problems to get a victory in two largest Bulgarian cities. In Sofia, the incumbent mayor Stefan Sofijanski is expected to get the absolute majority of votes already in the first election round as he is now supported by 60% of Sofia citizens. The ex-president of the official government is one among the most popular politicians in the whole country, rating immediately below President Petar Stojanov. More importantly, he enjoys the sympathy not only among the supporters of the ODS, but among a number of socialists as well. In Plovdiv too, the political favorite is an ODS candidate - Dr Ivan Comakov, who will most likely be a third new mayor in three mandates.

In other towns, however, the competition will be very tough, while in some places, like Burgas, the victory of socialist candidates is pretty predictable. A number of contestants, which are supported by left parties, namely by the BPS, run as independent candidates in order to avoid falling victims to the current bad image of the Socialist Party.

In fact, the real battle will be fought for average-sized towns and villages, which traditionally present strong fortresses of the BPS and the pro-Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The ruling majority, however, has taken some measures in order to secure its victory in these places. It has changed the electoral law, providing that polling stations will not be organized in places with less than 500 inhabitants. In this way, residents of small places are denied the right to vote. The colored ballots will be removed as well. Now they will be white - one for the major and for the local municipality representatives. The ballot will carry names of all candidates. This has already raised many controversies. For example, the ballot for electing local representatives in Sofia will be about 80 centimeters long. The BPS leaders consider this provision a disadvantage to their supporters, who are mostly recruited from the elderly. The same applies for regions with major Turkish population, which also includes elder citizens and illiterate people. It is feared that voters will not be able to cope with a long list of names, in particular because several parties have similar names and abbreviations.

In the middle of the election campaign, a "discreditation war" resumed after some calm period. The most recent scandal, this time, centered around the foreign- affairs minister Nadezda Mihajlova. The Bulgarian media were supplied with a tape-record of her conversation with the ODS leadership in Lovec, containing Minister's instructions how the elections should be won. "Feed the journalists" - was the advice the Minister gave to local party leaders for winning the support of the media. She also instructed the local party elite to require from other ministers to exert pressure on the management of state companies so that they would help the "blue cause". The scandal involves even the Spanish ambassador Hose Koderk, defined by Minister Mihajlova a supporter of Alliance of Democratic Forces of a kind which could rarely be met. "He is my friend and will help us" - she says on the tape.

Publication of the controversial tape-record born a wide wave of police investigations in local media bureaus in Lovec. The police action did not bring any result, but it is obvious that the taping was done by someone who witnessed the closed party meeting.

A week later, a BPS candidate for a mayor in the village of Staverci Janko Kozuharov was found dead, cut by a knife, in his bed. His mother said that her son's head was found on the night table. Before this, candidate Kozuharov served as a mayor for two mandates and was one among the most popular people in the village. Police investigation indicated that he was shot from close vicinity and afterwards cut by a knife. According to the police assumption, the murder could have been ordered by a local businessman, afraid that his misdeed would be covered up after the elections.

The most bizarre case concerns Momco Momcev, a candidate for a mayor in Lovec, from the coalition of Bulgarian Farmers' Union and People's Union. He was beaten up and forced to withdraw from the race in the favor of the ODS candidate. A puzzling aspect of this case is that both coalitions are parliamentary partners of the ODS, but have a right to nominate their own candidates in local elections.

By each day closer to the voting, a tension among politicians is growing. After it has started with discrediting scandals and murders, questions are raised how it is going to end. Pessimistic predictions, originating both from political parties and research agencies, do not exclude the possibility of the election fraud. Despite the fame of Bulgarians for having learnt how to organize elections in the last 10 years, favorable conditions for election forgery do exist. All election committees are dominated by representatives of the ODS; there is a lot of vagueness in the voting procedure with new election ballots. It is also suspected that election results could be forged in computer centers.

In many cases, the pessimistic predictions come from people fearing to lose the local rule in the forthcoming elections. On the other hand, determination of the ruling parties to win the power at the local level by far exceeds normal ambitions.

AIM Sofia

Georgi FILIPOV