Some degree of horse-trading is unavoidable in politics. To rail against the practice in principle is pointless and counterproductive, but one can understand why political deals get such a bad rap in Bulgaria, beyond the implied negative connotations of the word itself.

All one has to do is look back four years, when the senior partner in the government coalition at the time, the National Movement for Stability and Progress, then called the National Movement Simeon II, campaigned on the promise that it would never enter a coalition with the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Fast forward two months later and the former king’s party dutifully took its place in the new ruling coalition, all in the name of "Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union". The party has never recovered from the subsequent public disappointment, although its approval rating is no longer quite as low, according to opinion polls, and it should make the next Parliament.

What chances someone else will strike the same bargain after the July 5 elections? Boiko Borissov and his GERB, the biggest outside threat to the coalition in power, have said that they would rather remain in opposition than join the Socialists or the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in government. The Blue Coalition, likewise, rejected the prospect.

Most other parties, however, have not been as straightforward in their talk of future coalitions after the elections. Well, with the exception of Ataka, of course, whom no one wants as a potential coalition partner.

It is not counting your chickens early, as Socialist bigwig Roumen Ovcharov has suggested recently, merely justified concern – after all, if I am going to give you my vote, I would like to know how far are you willing to compromise with the platform you are campaigning on.

Not that campaign promises mean much in Bulgaria – that is one implied contract where political parties rarely come through with their side of the bargain. No wonder then that voter turnout is constantly on the decline, but then again for some parties that is far from a drawback and more of an advantage, with their disciplined core supporters never failing to turn out at the polling booths.

Instead, the ruling coalition is busy striking deals to fill in all top public administration jobs – even if they are not available, as was the case with the head of the central bank, whose current term does not expire until mid-October, and as it could still happen with Bulgaria’s nomination for European commissioner. Opposition parties, for their part, are vociferously promising to void as many of those appointments as possible, opening the way for a new round of bargaining.