Bulgaria holds seventh election in four years as coalitions fail again

By Edward McAllister

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarians head to the polls on Sunday in the seventh snap election inside four years as the country's fractured political parties struggle to form a stable coalition and voters become increasingly apathetic about the outcome.

Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and one of its most corrupt states, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 helped topple a coalition led by the centre-right GERB party.

The latest polls released on Thursday suggest more of the same - no clear winner, and no obvious options for a meaningful coalition. Voter turnout, seen at around 30%, is expected to be the lowest since the fall of communism.

Voting will end at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), with exit polls due around that time. Final results are due within days.

Short of an unexpected political partnership or the sudden emergence of a unifying leader, most analysts anticipate the country will be back at the ballot box early next year.

"There is a deep crisis of the political system," said Ognyan Minchev, professor of political science at Sofia University.

The dysfunction is worrying for Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 6.4 million people that borders the Black Sea. Its accession to the EU in 2007 ushered in a period of optimism marked by rising living standards and rapid economic growth. But the global financial crisis, COVID and war in Ukraine have dented foreign investment.

Now, it is in dire need of a period of stable government to accelerate the flow of EU funds into its creaking infrastructure and to nudge it towards joining the euro.

President Rumen Radev gave GERB a mandate to form a government after the last election in June in which the party won the most votes and secured 68 seats in the 240-seat parliament.

But it failed to form a majority coalition. Other parties were then offered the mandate, but failed as well, triggering this election.

A poll released on Thursday by the Sofia-based Alpha Research pollster showed GERB leading with 26.5% of the vote. The reformist We Continue the Change (PP) party is on 14.9% and the ultranationalist pro-Russian Revival party has 14.2%.

A split in the Movement for Rights and Freedom party, which mainly represents Bulgaria's large ethnic Turkish minority and had produced a solid voting block in recent elections, has made coalition building even more difficult, analysts said.

Turnout is expected to be between 30% and 32%, Alpha Research data showed. That is down from more than 75% in the 1990s and around 50% just three years ago.

Many people who Reuters spoke to had no intention of voting. But some saw it as the only way out of the political pit.

"I have decided to vote because I hope that we will finally have a regular government," said Sofia-based real estate agent Stiliyan Todorov. "But those hopes may have sunk into the ground by now."

(Additional reporting by Stoyan Nenov; Editing by Alison Williams)