Bulgaria before the election: The prime minister with the gold bars on the bedside table

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To be re-elected: Boyko Borissow

Photo: POOL / REUTERS

Ljudmil was only 16 years old.

A walk with his father on a busy Sofia boulevard was the teenager's undoing in February.

He stepped on the metal cover of a shaft - and broke in.

The father was electrocuted while trying to help his son.

Ljudmil himself died a little later in a hospital.

It quickly emerged that an incorrectly routed and unapproved electrical cable had electrified the metal lining of the manhole, causing the teenager's death.

The cable led to illegally set up kiosks, but the bribed officials were well known, according to Bulgarian media.

The case caused widespread public outrage, made headlines in the newspapers and sparked a heated parliamentary debate.

In the pillory: the corrupt state and its servants.

"This election is a vote on Borisov's model of rule

"

Because: The case of Lyudmil is one of the latest in a series of countless corruption cases that have shaped the system of rule of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov for a good decade.

The beefy "Brother Boyko", karate fighter, former communist police officer and now nominally Christian Democrat, has politically survived all affairs so far.

It could stay that way: the parliamentary elections will take place in Bulgaria this Sunday.

Borisov's party »Citizens for a European Development of Bulgaria« (GERB) is the favorite according to most surveys - and that in the midst of a corona situation exacerbated by health policy mismanagement with high numbers of infections and deaths.

And although last summer hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets against the prime minister and his government for months and kept chanting: "Mafia out!"

At the same time, so many new anti-establishment parties are competing in this election as seldom before - some with a chance of a double-digit election result.

Most of them emerged from the protest movement last summer, such as the electoral alliance »Democratic Bulgaria«, co-founded by the former Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov, who triggered the mass protests with a Facebook video about corruption.

"This election is a vote on Borisov's model of rule," says political scientist Daniel Smilov from the Center for Liberal Strategies (CLS) in Sofia.

»Unlike in Hungary or Poland, Borissow has a policy that is pro-European towards the outside world.

Domestically, however, it relies in a non-transparent manner on interest groups that control the media and exert pressure on the judiciary.

This model has left the entire country vulnerable to corruption. "

Many prominent critics of Borisov, including former members of the government such as Hristo Ivanov, speak of Bulgaria as a "captured state".

A serious judgment for an EU member state.

Daniel Smilov thinks it's appropriate.

"However, since Borissov is decidedly pro-European, that makes him - unlike Orbán - less visible as a problem for the EU."

It is getting harder and harder for the EU to look the other way

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the EU to look the other way.

Numerous party friends of Borisov and members of the government were or are involved in embezzlement of EU funds.

Recordings of the prime minister himself were made public in June of last year, showing him with a pistol, gold bars and bundles of euro notes on the bedside table in his bedroom - the affair has not yet been resolved.

Months ago, Borissow's GERB was in a low poll.

The party and the government have freed themselves from this, among other things with a nationalist campaign against North Macedonia.

Overall, however, the strength of Borissov and GERB lies primarily in the fragmentation and programmatic fuzziness of the opposition.

"The protest movement has fragmented politically"

The Bulgarian socialists, the successors of the former communists and the largest opposition party, are in reality a pro-Putin right-wing nationalist force and were themselves deeply involved in corruption scandals during their reign.

Newly founded parties such as »There is such a people« (ITN) by the popular musician and entertainer Slawi Trifonow have little profile apart from a populist anti-mafia discourse.

"The protest movement has fragmented politically," says political scientist Daniel Smilov.

And adds: "Borisov will be able to play off the opposition parties in the new parliament well against each other."

In the past few weeks, "Brother Boyko", as he is also called by his followers, toured the Bulgarian province almost every day, mostly himself at the wheel of an SUV, his shirt sleeves rolled up.

He inspected villages, construction sites, businesses and fields and had every appearance posted on Facebook.

The message here: The father of the country has everything in view and ensures order.

He, formerly mayor of Sofia himself, said nothing about the Ljudmil case.