The transformation of a radical into a moderate is not unknown in world politics but always remains very suspicious.

The recent positive vote of confidence in Parliament for Bulgaria's government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his center-right GERB party presents a very intriguing case in this context. Simply because the survival of the Borisov Cabinet appears to be practically in the hands of a questionable informal ally – the nationalist party "Ataka" (i.e. "Attack") and its eloquently vocal leader Volen Siderov.

While he did win Bulgaria's parliamentary elections in the summer of 2009, Boyko Borisov ("he" is not used by mistakes – it was his win not his party's) ended up with 117 MPs out of a total of 240 – forming a minority government, without making coalitions. His Cabinet was at first drawing support from an array of political forces said to be against the status quo of the three-way coalition government (2005-2009)

These included Ataka (with 20 MPs), the "old right-wing" from the 1990s now squeezed to the margins of the political sector represented by the Blue Coalition (14 MPs, made up of two major parties – the Union of Democratic Forces and the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria), and a marginal conservative party called RZS ("Order, Law, Justice") (which had 10 MPs at first, four of whom left later, becoming independent).

As the RZS party subsequently turned around vigorously attacking Borisov, and the Blue Coalition became increasingly estranged with GERB criticizing it on a number of issues, the nationalists from Ataka remained the only hardline supporter of the center-right minority government outside the GERB party.

In no previous moment was this as visible as it was during the confidence vote that Borisov requested from the Parliament after his government was severely shaken by "Tapegate" – the ongoing scandal of leaked secret service tapes of conversations which has cast very serious doubts on the motives, policies, and personal integrity of the GERB leadership, practically shattering the previously iconic status of the prime minister.

In spite of all really hard questions that the several "Tapegate" recordings raised with respect to Borisov and GERB, his Cabinet passed the vote of confidence with flying colors – actually, with the backing of all 117 GERB MPs, all 20 Ataka MPs, and even 4 former RZS MPs currently counted as independents.

The current opposition in the face of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), and what is left of RZS voted against the government, while the rightist Blue Coalition abstained.

The GERB party could probably, technically, stay in power and pass laws even with 117 MPs – simply because it's hard to imagine that all other 123 MPs will vote against it on all issues since some of the other forces are political opposites – and because all Bulgarian MPs hardly ever show up to work at the same time (however ridiculous this may sound). However, the fact of the matter is that the Borisov Cabinet remains in power and enjoys a de facto stable parliamentary majority thanks to the votes of Volen Siderov's nationalists.

So the million dollar – or better yet – million lev question (since we have nationalists involved) is – why are Volen Siderov and his "Ataka" party backing Borisov when they have no formal coalition with him, and have not extracted any senior government posts for their own party? What does Siderov get in return for his support? Why has a political leader previously known for his radical rhetoric and actions agreed to tone it all down, and has taken up what appears to be, at least on the outside, the responsible role of somebody making sure that Bulgaria has a stable government in a time of utmost economic challenges?

Analysts and journalists in Bulgaria have been struggling with this question – including by posing it to directly to Siderov several times – but their efforts have probably been insufficient since the weirdly strong Borisov-Siderov bond remains the first case in recent years in Bulgaria when even the most omnivorous tabloids failed to produce even remote or made-up stories about how Siderov and his party Ataka are benefitting, i.e. "cashing" or selling their support for the government.

Speaking during the confidence vote debates in Parliament, using a word play in Bulgarian in which "to cash" means "to turn into silver", Siderov proudly declared that the only thing he got "turned into silver" as a result of his 20 years in Bulgarian journalism and politics was his hair.

Siderov's major explanation as to why his previously rather radical formation is backing Borisov is its "principled" support for the GERB party so that Borisov can reverse the policies and actions of the previous government of the three-way coalition much hated by Ataka.

While such an explanation does make some sense – as Ataka was an extremely vocal critic – vocal to extremes indeed staging 1920s-style street rallies at one point - of the Socialists, ethnic Turks, and the centrist party of the former Tsar Simeon Saxe-Coburg in power in the years prior to 2009 – its case for "principled" support can make full sense probably only a country such as Denmark or Sweden.

Siderov and his party Ataka have indeed kept much of their rhetoric – slamming neoliberalism and "market fundamentalism" and citing the global economic crisis as evidence for the evilness of the globalized world; demanding a revision of the major privatization deals in Bulgaria (these deals are seen as notorious by most Bulgarians anyway); demanding a greater role of the state in the Bulgarian economy in fields such as energy, telecommunications, transport, defense industry; vigorously opposing Turkey's EU membership.

However, ever since they started backing the Borisov government, all of that is spoken in a much calmer voice, and the more questionable statements that were previously seen as examples of belligerent xenophobia, homophobia, and other neo-fascist-like trappings are all pretty much gone.

(It is interesting to note that, as Siderov himself told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) in an interview in June 2009 – the name of the party "Attack" comes from a crucial Bulgarian victory in the 1913 Balkan War so it shouldn't be associated with neo-fascist connotations but with indigenous Bulgarian nationalism.)

Much of this new moderation exhibited by Siderov is probably designed to rectify the situation from the summer of 2009 when Borisov was initially embarrassed (at least for the sake of his international and European image) to accept the support of the nationalists especially because of the concerns the European People's Party, the EU-wide party family of center-right and Christian-Democratic parties which was quick to adopt GERB as one of its youngest children as Borisov's popularity surged in Bulgaria in 2007-2009.

As it turned out, however, GERB's Bulgarian EPP siblings – the UDF and DSB, the building blocks of the Blue Coalition – have shied away from lending Borisov outright support in spite of the numerous prompting, urging, prodding and pleas by the European People's Party leaders in Brussels.

The Blue Coalition, Bulgaria's old right before GERB's emergence in 2006, has often been more critical of Borisov than have been the Socialists on the left and the ethnic Turks in the center of the Bulgarian political spectrum. It has slammed GERB all the time even though it was made a de facto participant in the GERB Cabinet by silently being granted two deputy minister seats – one in the Environment Ministry (Deputy Minister Evdokiya Maneva) and one in the Foreign Ministry (Deputy Minister Konstantin Dimitrov).

Such a dubious attitude probably makes much sense for the representatives of the "old right" since GERB's potential success and establishment as a mainstream center-right political party would leave them out of the picture in the next elections.

But it has also led to a paradox in which the EPP is seeing the government of its most beloved Bulgarian kid survive only thanks to the amicability the neighbor's evil child with whom that kid was not supposed to play, and in spite of the hostility of its older siblings.

Against this backdrop, the grand alliance between Borisov and Siderov gives the impression of some sort of grand backstage deal because even ideologically Ataka has much fewer reasons to support GERB than do the EPP-affiliated parties of the Blue Coalition.

Yet, the only time the Ataka party and Siderov threatened Borisov and returned more eloquently to his earlier style was in October 2010 when Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan visited Sofia and Borisov made protocol declarations in support of Turkey's EU membership. This caused the Ataka MPs to march in the Bulgarian Parliament with T-shirts saying "No to Turkey in the EU" and threatening to withdraw their support for the government but this Bulgarian storm in a teacup just died down without any consequences – not least because the participants in it do realize that Turkey's EU bid is a question of much higher European and global politics.

With this little exception, ever since GERB and Borisov came to power, Siderov has been talking and acting a lot more like one of Borisov's closest figures – like a deputy prime minister or a deputy chair of the GERB party – rather than as the leader of a different political formation.

One of the perplexing variables in the equation of the Borisov-Siderov bond is the effect that this alliance will have on the popularity and electoral support of the Ataka party. A recent poll showed that if Bulgaria held parliamentary elections now, Ataka, the fourth most popular party in the 2009 elections, would not make the 4% cut for Parliamentary presence.

Ataka's support for GERB seems to be diminishing its popularity with its core voters, who are mostly residents of small-town Bulgaria disgruntled to the point of radicalization with the socio-economic conditions, the dirty privatization of state assets after 1989, and the crumbling of the inter-ethnic relations and lack of integration of the ethnic minorities with the mainstream Bulgarian society.

Thus, Ataka stands a fair chance of losing a lot of its voters by backing GERB for two reasons – first, because Borisov himself gets to represent the "protest" against the previous status quo, and second, because Borisov can be viewed as being part of the "corrupt establishment", meaning that Ataka has also succumbed to the influence of this establishment, and other radical formations should replace it.

On the other hand, Ataka's stragegy in 2005-2009 was to ride the wave of the radicalization of the "masses" in Bulgaria. However, unless there was a total collapse of the state and economy in the country (such as in 1997) or outright inter-ethnic violence, God forbid, Siderov's party has little potential to garner more than 15% of the votes, and it has been viewed extremely negatively – literally as neo-fascists – by the rest of the society. Is his backing for Borisov a bid to turn Ataka into in a moderately nationalist formation that stands the chance of convincing some day the entire Bulgarian society to swallow its potential to form or participate in the government, or to elect the President?

Whether that is the case or not, Siderov's backing for Borisov is a huge gamble with his own political future – as it has caused his party to practically lose much of its identity and the benchmarks for which it was known. It is unclear how many voters it will have left if the Borisov Cabinet serves its entire term, and Ataka continues to exist in its shadow for 2.5 more years.

A very simple everyday logic, even outside political thinking, would lead one to believe that Siderov must be benefiting somehow from his support for Borisov "in terms of money."

However, as mentioned earlier, there has been no such evidence to date whatsoever. Unlike other political parties in Bulgaria, the Ataka party is really not known for having outright connections to corporate entities and firms whose economic interests it might seek to defend in politics.

Whatever Siderov and Ataka's payoff for their support for Borisov might be, the fact of the matter is that the recent vote of confidence for the Borisov government has marked Siderov's most important moment in Bulgarian politics to date – even more important that his making it to the presidential elections runoff in 2006 against incumbent Georgi Parvanov.

(Back then, Siderov lost 76% to 24% in the second round, in what seemed to be the Bulgarian version of the French presidential elections from 2002 in which all mainstream political forces backed Chirac against Jean Marie Le Penn of the French National Front.)

A possible scenario is that Siderov might seek to capitalize on his "responsible" attitude and moderation transformation by running for President of Bulgaria in the fall of 2011. If so, his only fair chance of winning is if he is supported by Borisov – which today seems highly unlikely in spite of their current alliance. It remains to be seen if Siderov's strong moment in the vote of confidence for the Borisov Cabinet will last more than just a moment.

Siderov together with his party Ataka were the only ones who Borisov thanked for their support during the confidence vote debates in Parliament. The unequivocally true reason for Siderov's hardline support for the Cabinet remains unknown. But if one believes that Bulgaria at present is better off with the a stable Cabinet in the face of the Borisov government rather than with early elections and a caretaker cabinet in the meantime, they should also thank Siderov – whatever ramifications that might have.

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