The Clash of Leaders a as Norm of Doing Politics in Bulgaria: the Personalization of Party Politics

The paper proposed focuses on the personalization of Bulgarian party politics, which is in the raise at the expense of: party’s identities; work on party building; intra party democracy and social representation. The main questions concern the causes of personalization (Karvonen, 2010 The Personalization of Politics: A Study of Parliamentary Democracies ; Renwick and Pilet 2016 Faces on the Ballot. The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe; and others) in the Bulgarian case. One hypothesis that could be advanced is that a successful centralized personalized political actor which dominates the parliamentary and party system will have a “contagious” effect on all relevant political actors. Attention is paid to the personalization of 1) new and of 2) established parties. In Bulgaria, there is a proliferation of radical populist right formations, whose main trait is the “charismatic” leadership. Also, since the electoral successes of the personalized populist centre-right formation “ Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria” (GERB) in 2009, its style and way of political communication have proved to be “contagious” to other relevant political actors. While the personalization of party politics has not been the GERB’s “invention” (a high personalization would characterize the established since 1990’s party “Movement for Rights and Freedoms”, and others), it was the GERB’s style that imposed itself with success. The wave of personalization reached also old parties like the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).