Sawt Falasteen - Close race in Bulgaria's fifth election in two years

Russia's invasion of its neighbour has deepened a political crisis that has engulfed the poor Balkan country since 2020, turmoil unseen since the fall of Communism.

Based on initial exit polls, Sunday's results are unlikely to end the crisis.

Both the conservative GERB of former premier Boyko Borisov and a coalition led by liberal Kiril Petkov stood at around 25 to 26 percent, exit polls showed.

Borisov lost power in 2021 after massive anti-corruption protests rocked Bulgaria three years ago.

But that set off a record series of elections in the country of 6.5 million, which is a member of the European Union and NATO but is historically and culturally close to Russia.

The country's political parties have struggled since 2021 to form stable coalitions, leading to a deeply fragmented parliament and a string of interim governments.

"No one inspires confidence any more," Krasimir Naydenov, 57, told AFP outside a polling station in Sofia on Sunday.

He said he had voted nonetheless, hoping for "the government to start functioning again".

- 'Worrying spiral' -

Turnout, which sunk to a record low of under 40 percent during the last general election in October, was low again.

"We must find a solution to the crisis," Borisov told reporters after casting his ballot.

"With this terrible war in Ukraine -- this partition of the world -- we must very clearly stay with the democratic world."

Petkov, who was briefly premier in 2022, has so far ruled out working with GERB -- the target of corruption protests he himself took part in.

This time, his party We Continue the Change (PP) has joined forces with the small right-wing Democratic Bulgaria coalition.

"I voted for a normal European life. I voted for us to have a normal European government, normal European roads, normal European healthcare, normal European education," Harvard-educated Petkov said.

Unless Borisov withdraws, there is no end in sight to this "worrying spiral of elections", predicted Lukas Macek, associate researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute for Central and Eastern Europe.

"We find the same pattern as in other central European countries -- a former leader who clings on and the other parties who refuse to ally with him, without having much else in common," he told AFP.

- Pro-Russian influence -

"I fear the influence of pro-Russian parties in the next parliament," Ognian Peychev, a 60-year-old engineer, told AFP at a recent protest against the war in Ukraine.

The ultra-nationalist Vazrazhdane party, which defends the Kremlin's war, won 13-14 percent of the vote, according to exit polls, up from the 10 percent it won in the October ballot.

The Socialist BSP, the successor of Bulgaria's Communist Party, has also sided with Moscow and objects to sending weapons to Ukrainian forces.

Many in Bulgaria still revere Russia as the country that ended five centuries of Ottoman rule in 1878.

"Both Petkov and Borisov are too aggressively critical of Russia," said Mariana Valkova, a 62-year-old entrepreneur who worked in the Soviet Union.

"I'd rather there wasn't a government and (President Rumen) Radev remained in charge."

Pro-Russian Radev, who has appointed interim cabinets between the inconclusive elections, has denounced Petkov and his allies as "war mongers".

He also opposes sending arms to Ukraine.

At the same time, Bulgaria's munitions factories have been running at full capacity making ammunition to be exported to Kyiv via third countries.

O.Mousa--SF-PST