For the past ten years, no government in Bulgaria has lasted its full four-year term. Between 2013 and 2017 alone, the country had three caretaker governments.

This apparent instability actually masks a more fundamental stability: the reigning technocratic consensus. Unaware of the complete disappearance of political difference in Bulgaria, Western pundits tend to oversimplify the nation’s politics. For example, the Washington Post described this week’s election as the victory of the pro-Europe party over the pro-Russia party, while the Wall Street Journal worried whether Putin had rigged another election.

This evacuation of politics breeds apathy among voters, evident in steadily declining turnout, and sparks the proliferation of impassioned, supposedly radical, far-right parties. These groups purport to challenge the reigning centrist consensus, but they instead precipitate a general rightward shift as the mainstream tries to neutralize the challenge by co-opting its rhetoric and platform.