ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the reasons for the lack of institutionalization of the Bulgarian post-communist party system. The first party system established just after 1989 was based on the cleavage between ex- and anti-communists and disappeared in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The new parties founded on the ashes of the former anti-communist bloc were catch-all parties without ideology. The party system became less polarized but more fragmented and quite unpredictable. A new cleavage between the global and local seems to organize the party competition, but for the moment it legitimates only the nationalist parties in the party system. The result is that there is a continuing process of seizure of the public sphere by the private groups linked to the government.
