Can Bulgaria’s Government Stamp Out Corruption?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Following eight months of political standoff, including three general elections, Bulgaria’s parliament finally chose Kiril Petkov as the country’s next prime minister in December, following the country’s November 14 balloting.

MPs selected the 41-year-old graduate of the University of British Columbia and Harvard by 134 votes to 104. In a separate vote, lawmakers also approved his new centrist-led government -- a coalition led by Petkov’s anti-corruption We Continue to Change party (PP) and three other political groups.

Together they control 134 seats in Bulgaria’s 240-seat parliament and are close to President Rumen Radev, who also won re-election last year.

The country’s ruling party between 2009 and 2021, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), led by Boyko Borisov, went down to defeat. He was accused of having links with the country’s oligarchs and criminals.

Founded just last September, the PP quickly won support due to their resolute anti-graft pledges to bring transparency, zero tolerance for corruption, and reforms to key sectors, in what remains the European Union’s poorest member.

The country has the highest income inequality and the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the 27-nation EU. Anti-vaccine protesters tried to storm the Bulgarian parliament Jan. 12, led by Revival (Vazrazhdane), a nationalist, COVID-skeptic party.

“You and the coalition partners have a responsibility to reform the vicious power model inherited from 12 years of authoritarian rule, to tackle corruption and lawlessness, the inequalities and poverty they create,” President Radev told Petkov, in reference to Borisov.

This has come none too soon. Bulgarians have been leaving their home in droves, contributing to the world’s fastest population decline. Bulgaria’s population was around nine million at the end of the 1980s, but has dropped to fewer than seven million today.

Low birth rates are the biggest factor for such a steep decline. But what sets Bulgaria apart from other declining European countries is its massive outbound migration. The majority of Bulgarians, from doctors to construction workers, believe that better opportunities await abroad. 

At least 60,000 Bulgarians leave each year. About 1.1 million live in other European countries, particularly Germany and Spain.

“It is time, after 32 years, that Bulgarians saw power-holders who care for them; it is time young Bulgarians abroad saw Bulgaria as a promising place to return to, and our parents saw Bulgaria as a place where they can have a worthy pension and live their old age with dignity,” Petkov declared.

Andrey Gyurov, chair of the parliamentary group of the PP, explained that graft has long been the biggest problem in the country. “We need justice. That’s why our top priority is zero corruption.” Bulgaria remains the EU’s most graft-prone member, according to Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perception Index.

Its recent Global Corruption Barometer, published last summer prior to Borisov’s defeat, showed that 48 per cent of Bulgarians thought that corruption had increased in the previous 12 months. As well, 56 per cent believed that Borisov was involved in corruption, 67 per cent thought the same for MPs, and 40 per cent felt that most or all magistrates and judges were corrupt.

Corruption in Bulgaria had reached a boiling point that the electorate felt could no longer be tolerated. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Bulgaria against the right-wing government in 2020.

Among the priorities of the new government are the fight against corruption, plus tackling rising electricity prices and the coronavirus crisis. Plans to overhaul the Anti-Corruption Commission led to the resignation of its chair, Sotir Tsatsarov, in January.

Bulgaria is also in urgent need of judicial reform. A 2020 European Parliament resolution noted a “significant deterioration when it comes to respecting the principles of the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights.”

On top of the scandals within the country, the U.S. Treasury Department last summer blacklisted several prominent Bulgarians, including lawmaker Delyan Peevski. He was one of six individuals who were added to a sanctions list due to “their extensive roles in corruption.”

The move was described as the single largest action targeting corruption to date under the Magnitsky Act, a law under which Washington punishes foreign government officials implicated in corruption or human rights abuses. Petkov’s government can only improve matters.