It wouldn't be that chaotic if I were the organiser.
Ekaterina Yordanova, GERB, who, according to some reports, was behind the protest of public transit drivers in Sofia
It's simple. The boy is incapable of doing anything properly. In two years, he hasn't solved a single issue – garbage, traffic gams, anything.
Boyko Borisov, GERB, on Sofia's mayor, Vasil Terziev
All the most 'capable' people of GERB can do is to punish the people of Sofia.
Easter, according to Boyko Borisov, was the "brightest of holidays" and we all lived in the "best days of the Christian religion."
It appears I raised you as men with rabbit hearts.
Former Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova to the new caretaker leadership of the BSP
Let the prosecutors probe whatever they want. They may also call in the dog.
Changes Continued co-leader Asen Vasilev on an ongoing investigation of alleged corruption in Bulgarian Customs
I do not comment on the panic attacks of any political leader. This issue should be addressed by a doctor.
President Rumen Radev on the leader of the DPS Delyan Peevski's assertion that the he wanted to yield Bulgaria to Putin
We are on the downwards slide and it is well oiled. The idea that by staying in opposition we will attract some voters back is absolutely naive.
He who takes wads of cash will perish by wads of cash.
Boyko Borisov on the scandal involving Boyko Rashkov, former interior minister. Rashkov's dog appeared in leaked photos along wads of cash supposedly owned by two businessmen allegedly involved in contraband
We must not look as though we are not determined to go on with reforms.
Hristo Ivanov, Co-Chairman of CC-DB
GERB has a single leader. If I meet with 5-6 people I will be outnumbered. These people do not behave. If you were in a meeting where Kiril Petkov breaks bottles and glass on the table, would you want a leaders' meeting?
Boyko Borisov, leader of GERB, on why he avoids meeting with the leaders of the CC-DB coalition
We started a new political transition and we need wider support.
Hristo Ivanov, leader of Yes Bulgaria, on negotiations with DPS MP Delyan Peevski, sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act
Do you want to take DNA from all children in Sofia?
Boyko Borisov on his refusal of a paternity test over alleged offspring supposedly living in luxury in Barcelona
People overestimate us: we are neither that omnipotent, nor that evil.
GERB MP Toma Bikov
If anyone believed that the CC-DB, or Changes Continued-Democratic Bulgaria alliance, who lost the April election and are now the second largest party in the Bulgarian National Assembly, were serious in their declared and oft-repeated pledges they wanted to dismantle what they called Boyko Borisov's "mafia state" must have been in for a a bit of a surprise. According to a twelfth-hour agreement, GERB and the CC-DB announced they would actually become friends (!) in the name of "civilisational choices" and "geopolitical orientation" instead.
Since yesterday afternoon a drone has been hovering around my terrace and has entered it.
Yasen Todorov, deputy director of the National Investigations Service
I was proposed (someone said, by Boyko Borisov) to become ambassador to Israel or Turkey. I did not take this seriously.
Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev
All the prosecutor general does is talk about me. He thinks I am afraid of him. I do not get scared easily.
Despite the massive and apparently rather expensive advertising campaign, which involved TV, print, outdoor and plenty of Facebook, the Changes Continued-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) alliance lost the 2 April election.
As soon as the news of the Thursday evening arrests broke out a significant chunk of the Bulgarian population went into a frenzied jubilation comparable, according to one observer, to that goal at the 1994 World Championship Bulgaria scored against Germany. That goal. Folks started popping open new bottles of Rakiya and some of Borisov's neighbours in Bankya even organised a small fireworks display. Is the tyrant really going where he should have gone a long time ago?, Bulgarians were asking their Facebook friends.
As the dust settles down after Bulgaria's third attempt in a year to elect a government and as the post-election horse-trading begins, there are several key conclusions to be drawn from Boyko Borisov's dramatic downfall and the emergence of the Changes Continued political party.
Polling agencies are not to be trusted.
A sober look at the current mess of Bulgarian politics in the aftermath of 12 years of Boyko Borisov may produce some unexpected if slightly idiosyncratic explanations. Perhaps Bulgaria's political parties are where they are at – namely, at each other's throats – not because they really want to "scrape off" each other from the face of the earth but because... the publicists who invented their names badly miscalculated in the first place. If you, as a foreigner, has trouble understanding what the difference between Stand Up! Mafia Out! and Stand Up.BG! We Are Coming! is, do not worry.
Some analysts were surprised, others were not: the 11 July snap election, called in the wake of the failure of Bulgaria's 45th National Assembly to set up a government, returned more or less the same results. Boyko Borisov's GERB continues to be a large and monolithic political party if led by an increasingly erratic strongman. It was pushed into the second place by a margin of less than a percent by Slavi Trifonov's ITN, or There Is Such a People, grouping. Third comes the beleaguered BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party.
The month of June, officially the election campaign month ahead of the early ballot scheduled for 11 July, has been extraordinary even in the standard of Bulgarian politics. Hardly a day has passed without some major or minor scandal bursting out into the open. Mostly, these were caused by the revelations by the President Rumen Radev-appointed caretaker government of gross misdeeds committed by Boyko Borisov's GERB officials or by Boyko Borisov, this country strongman prime minister in 2009-2021, himself.
Following the failure of Bulgaria's "short" parliament, which sat for less than a month, to fulfil its basic constitutional duty, form a functioning government, President Rumen Radev stepped in and appointed a caretaker administration. Though its main task is to organise the next general election, to be held on 11 July, the "caretaker" government is not as powerless as it seems. In fact, it can do everything a regular government is able to do save for actions – such as altering the state budget or concluding international treaties – that would require parliamentary approval.
Most public opinion agencies got it wrong. Following a month of an exceptionally tepid (even in Bulgarian standards) election campaign, in which the coronavirus pandemic was hardly mentioned, Bulgarians went to the polls to elect their new parliament. The voter turnout was about 50 percent, which is about usual for Bulgarian elections. Bulgarians, contrary to what pollsters of all shapes and sizes had predicted, defied the coronavirus frenzy and went to cast their ballots in person, both in Bulgaria and abroad. They voted with their feet.
One of the topics debated in what was an exceptionally tepid election campaign was how Bulgarians abroad should be enabled to vote. Bulgarians, like the French and the Italians but unlike the Danes and the Irish, can vote in general elections regardless of their permanent place of abode.
Some media try to represent the upcoming election as a titanic battle of a major anti-Communist, pro-democracy and pro-Western establishment (Boyko Borisov's GERB) and a renegade leftist party (BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party) that stems from the erstwhile Bulgarian Communist Party, the one that ruled Communist Bulgaria with an iron fist in 1944-1989. In fact, if opinion polls are anything to go by, GERB and BSP are almost equal in size, with the GERB sometimes emerging ahead by a few percentage points, and vice versa. Significantly, neither GERB nor the BSP are particularly large.
Under GERB, Bulgaria's public has become accustomed to scandals of various magnitude that come and go about every second day, sometimes several times a day. Outrageous statements often generated by fake news make headlines for a few hours and electrify the public's attention only to be overshadowed by the next scandal that may be even more outrageous than the previous one.