To give the elections to Slavi Trifonov

Although they don't know it yet, yesterday GERB deputies gifted the next elections to Slavi Trifonov. They did it in the same way that Kostov gifted the elections to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, that Parvanov gifted the elections to Borisov, that Fidosova gifted the elections to the BSP, and that Oresharski then gifted the elections back to GERB – through clumsy government repression. History is clear - every ruling party in Bulgaria that has used state power to crush an opposition openly rising against it has lost the elections.

The "screwed up" referendum

GERB repealed its own law on combined referendums and elections in order to “screw up” Trifonov’s referendum by holding it during the summer vacation. The goal of the ruling party is clear – for the referendum to not gather enough activity, ergo for it to not be valid and fail. The result will be exactly the opposite – the open war of the state and the party status quo against the referendum gives all the trump cards into Slavi’s hands:

1. He is repressed (again) by the ruling class and thus gets the perfect opportunity to speak on behalf of "the people" or at least that part of "the people" that feels the same way (and it is not small).
2. If the referendum fails, then the government and the repression will be to blame -> Trifonov wins.
3. If the referendum is successful, the credit will go to the team behind the initiative, which despite the repression won -> Trifonov wins.

That is, all outcomes of the referendum "screwed up" by GERB are now in Trifonov's favor, and the repression itself allows him to take an even more categorical anti-GERB and anti-status quo position.

"Mandatory" voting

The logic of the ruling party behind the introduction of compulsory voting is that voters will go out to vote, by inertia they will “throw” ballots for the 2 or 3 major parties, ignoring the smaller ones, and the majority of votes will pour even more money into party subsidies. In fact, none of the above will happen. Non-voting Bulgarians are deeply disappointed and angry at the behavior of the parties in recent years. With few exceptions at the zenith of Saxe-Coburg and Borisov, no one has managed to move non-voting people to the voting group. If this happens through coercive measures, then these angry and disappointed voters will vote for the one who is the angriest towards the parties and politicians they hate. In today’s case, “that one” is Slavi Trifonov.

"I don't support anyone" - an actual vote

The third innovation is the option on the ballot to count the “I do not support anyone” as an actual vote. In this clever way, the barrier to entering parliament is de facto raised, since the votes actually cast for each party will be compared not only with the votes cast for all parties, but also with the votes cast not supporting anyone. Thus, the big parties are simply making another attempt to screw the small ones and throw them out of parliament. The thing they miss is that in this way they stimulate the Patriotic Front to enter a coalition with Slavi Trifonov shortly before the next parliamentary elections. In other words, GERB is giving its future main enemy about 150,000 votes and solid legal funding.

"Shortening" the election campaign

The fourth shot in the foot is the accepted proposal of the Patriotic Front to shorten the election campaign from 1 month to 21 days. The logic here is to screw up not the small parties, but the new parties by giving them a shorter window to introduce their faces and ideas to the voters. Again, however, the ruling party is overlooking the fact that the only future opposition in the person of Trifonov has already started its election campaign. Under the pretext of "talks about the referendum", Slavi's team is touring the country and gathering sincerely enthusiastic and deeply angry and disappointed people. Anyone who has been to such a meeting knows that it has nothing to do with the sham party meetings of the parliamentary parties, at which local city dignitaries gather the municipal administration and relatives to show party power in front of the Sofia leader. Those attending Trifonov's meetings go there themselves, take the floor themselves, argue themselves and then will campaign for him themselves. Such a “grassroots” campaign has not existed in political life since the 1990s.

These government repressions by GERB, BSP and MRF against the rising opposition in the person of Slavi Trifonov will have exactly the opposite effect of what the ruling party intended and practically give the next parliamentary elections to the showman's party.

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