The number of Bulgarians, who acknowledge that democracy is the best form of public governance despite its shortcomings, is declining. This is shown by sociological data for the period from 2005 to the end of last year. The good news is that convinced Democrats are still in the majority, the bad news is that this majority is already too fragile.
Given the apparent collapse of the quality of the elites who produce politics in Bulgaria and the continuing hibernation of civic activity, there is no reason to doubt that those convinced of the ability of democracy to solve their problems are melting. In the four years of their governance from 2005 to 2009, the Government of BSP, MRF and NMSS led by Sergei Stanishev, had hit the rock bottom on unprincipledness and corruption. And that’s why they left hated. But now the question is why after them we still are going nowhere?
Here are ten proposals for quick answers:
- In 2009, Borissov came to power with a hesitant affiliation to the right, but also with a signature under a public contract to restore integrity, legality and justice, noon robbed by the „triple coalition“ of Dogan, Stanishev and Simeon II. Since then, he has systematically violated this contract, suspended, invalidated and rendered meaningless whole chapters of its content. He does it in public and is sincerely intoxicated by the almost sensual love of that social segment that fools every time when gets hungry and for which freedom has never been a basic value. It was no value at all because it was of no use to this segment.
2. For 10 years
GERB completely depleted of content the institutions
of the state and of democracy. And so emptied the state itself of meaning. Now, the one who gives, takes, says and punishes is only Borisov. He became a hero of some rosy virtual reality. He is present in it always and everywhere, and in recent months even day and night in video sessions through profiles on Facebook and Youtube.
3. Even before winning the 2009 elections, Borissov had already been declared by Peevski’s media to be the one who
„will come from the fire and will save Bulgaria“.
Thankfully, he turned them into officials of his policy and ruined the meaning of journalism so as not to hinder him. And then, he lightly put a sign of equality between „freedom of speech“ and „freedom of press“ to juggle with them every time he had to neglect the effect of zeal by which he destroyed the system of dialogue between the government and the citizens of Bulgaria.
4. Although he started his own party as a civic movement,
Borissov killed every civic energy for change
with cold-blooded indifference. For years, GERB was self-mutilating with every business that refused to be „politically correct“, and thus ruined the basis of free initiative.
5. Bulgaria has become a country of “nothing happening”.
Nothing after the scandals with „Hello, Tanov“, with the wiretapped dirty conversation of the Prime Minister with the former Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Naydenov and the former Sofia City Prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov, nothing with „Hello, I’m Banov“. And then the same with Tsvetanov’s six apartments and his personal elevator, with the „hole“ bought on the green by the former Minister of Justice Tsetska Tsacheva, with the roof barbecue of the helpful head of KPKONPI Plamen Ivanov, with the investment real estate of Vezhdi Rashidov, with the free appartments of Vladislav Goranov … Nothing after nothing!
6. Borissov deliberately and methodically helped his right-wing opposition to die so that it could not be his partner. And preferred
power in secret complicity with the MRF
and its honorary chairman and apparently with Karakachanov, Simeonov and Siderov. Thus, there is always an excuse for the absence of any public reaction to the rampant language of hatred, homophobia and xenophobia that the people with whom he shares power allow themselves. Let’s not forget that, in fact, Borissov’s coalition partners are an agent of the Sixth Directorate of the former State Security, one who entered the Parliament with kicks and hooliganism against Bulgarian citizens at the Malko Tarnovo border crossing, and one who wrote a book in order to explain that The Holocaust and the „version that 6 million Jews were gassed and burned in the furnaces of Hitler’s concentration camps“ were a „great deception.“
7. Neither Borissov, nor his power ministers, nor his party’s strongmen ever allowed themselves to utter a word against
paramilitary gangs trained by Russian instructors
of mad Walter Kalashnikovs and extra-parliamentary fascists who dream of a new order through expropriation, nationalization and retribution distributed on the spot.
8. Has anyone heard with their ears from Borisov
a word opposite the routs against democracy
in Turkey, in Russia, or anywhere in the world? On the contrary, he speaks with a warm smile about „the friend Taipi“ because, as Vezhdi Rashidov said, „this diplomacy probably irritates many of our people, but it is very useful for the world.“ However, it was exactly this diplomacy that was „fed“ by the extradition of Turkish businessman Abdullah Buyuk. If it is already forgotten – he was one of a total of 7 people, handed over by the Bulgarian state and given to Erdogan secretly, illegally and forcibly, after he had sought political asylum in our country. And only a few months later, when asked: „Are the human rights of these people respected?“, Tsetska Tsachva – Borissov’s personal proposal in the presidential campaign in 2017, allowed herself to say: „Above all, it is the national interest of the state before the protection of individual rights“.
9. With the end of the term of Rosen Plevneliev
GERB has irretrievably lost its voice in the talks with Putin.
Not to mention the continuing disgraceful muttering after the annexation of Crimea. At the same time, National Assembly Speaker Tsveta Karayancheva warmly told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov how Bulgaria would become a bridge between NATO and Russia. A bridge between a Treaty defending civilization based on the principles of democracy, individual freedom and the rule of law and its complete opposite.
10. In the three decades after 1989
the conversation about the obscurantism of the communist regime
in Bulgaria was cunning and immoral. But even in the last ten of them, we did not find the courage to write in history textbooks that the period from 1944 to 1989 was marked by sadistic cruelty, revenge, destructive stupidity, hypocrisy, and encouraged mediocrity. On the contrary, we gathered courage for the obscenity that in the years during which Bulgaria was ruled by Todor Zhivkov, „the rising of living standards suppressed dissatisfaction of the lack of civil rights.“
It is logical! It even sounds incredible that the collapse in support of this particular democracy is only 8% in ten years. But if the trend continues, the road forward will be all the way downwards – to more and more selfies with the people, to less and less freedom, and to the power of the ever stronger hand.
Quo vadis, Borisov?
