Bulgaria after the European Elections: Tectonic Shifts Under Way?

The first reactions to results of May 25's European elections in Bulgaria looked like a part of a literature workshop in a town that could be anywhere around the world. Let's have a single phrase taken out of it as an example:

"Yesterday I said to my mother: I am heading for my slaughter, you will take a bottle of wine and candy to give neighbors a treat. I am going to the elections with my white shirt on."

You might wonder whom these words belonged to. They resonated throughout Sofia's half-empty International Press Center and showed that, at the same time while Europe was trying to deal with the shock of an unprecedented far-right success, Bulgaria was heading for quite another problem.

Most of the journalists who had decided to attend the political parties' press conferences called after initial results did find the comment to be of some amusement. But most of them just had their attention nailed to a TV screen image displaying Nikolay Barekov, the journalist-turned-politician who used the almost epic sentence above to shed some light on how tough a challenge he was facing by standing at this year's elections for the European Parliament.

Media interest in Barekov, which had been quite acute during the election campaign, showed yet another surge when first exit poll estimates were announced at 19:00 Bulgarian time. His movement Bulgaria without Censorship, which led a coalition of parties through the EU vote, came fourth just a year after the former journalist had set up his political organization. Polls also revealed he was only a few percent away from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), the imminent third political power (whatever the elections), and eight or nine from the utterly defeated ruling...