Bulgarian anti-establishment parties' digital campaigns in 2021 elections. The cases of "Movement Yes! Bulgaria", "There is such a People!" and "Stand Up! Mafia Get out!"

The paper aims to present a case study of the usages and the place of the digital tools in the electoral campaigns in Bulgaria. The analysis will be focused on the extra-parliamentary opposition and on the new parliamentary parties which entered the parliament after the three different legislative elections, held in 2021. There is no proper regulation on electoral campaigns in Bulgaria, or on digital parties. The digitalization of party’ s electoral campaigns have been bolstered by the Covid-19 pandemic. New parties and political entrepreneurs, challenging the mainstream parties, have appeared and developed mostly in a digital mode. Few parties, like the “Movement Yes, Bulgaria! are implementing digital tools for intra party decisions and communication, candidate’ nomination and selection. Some political parties are designated by their opponents as only “Facebook” parties or clubs of friends. During the different 2021 electoral campaigns, the anti-system populist party “There is such a People” make usage mainly of its own private TV channel 7/8 TV, Facebook and Youtube. The digitalization of campaigns appears to be if not more advanced, at least more important for the new parties than for the established ones. Partly it is due to the lack of public funding and access to conventional channels of information and communication. Partly it is related to the type, the essence and the characteristics of newly appearing parties. Methods: observation, analysis of digital electoral campaign and strategies implemented for each one of the three parliamentary elections in 2021.