Anna Krasteva
My mobile pathways met me with a Dutch lawyer, consulting companies and institutions on all continents. I asked him, based on his vast intercultural experience, how would he describe the fact that the Dutch are a happy nation. The answer deeply impressed me, because it also took me to the famous Dutch canals.
My companion differentiated two main reasons for the happiness of people in the Netherlands. The interests and the wellness of the citizens is the first priority of the country, regardless the party’s color or the governments. The citizens have strong and long-lasting confidence that this will continue. The citizens themselves have learned from nature and history not to count only to the country and to work side by side with their neighbours and fellow citizens – everybody should clean their part of the canal regularly. Without this shared responsibility, the country, which is below the sea level, wouldn’t exist.
Trust, shared responsibility, secure present, guaranteed future. The bursts of laughter at the next table were vivid demonstration that none of these conditions is presents, happiness can still exists. But here I am not talking about happiness of a nation, but for trust, which builds the threads between the people and the state, between the citizens and their political representatives. What does the political campaign tells us? Will there be such a future?
Post-democracy in sacks and bags
Post-democracy is a complex concept for a simple, painfully familiar phenomenon – institutions exist but are an empty shell, the state does not serve our common interests, but serves a tight an oligarchic elite of politicians and their hoops of (not just offshore) companies. If the campaign is boring, it is because for the post-democratic parties is cheaper to buy votes – literally and through media marketing, than to communicate with us, walking door to door.
The argument “there is corruption everywhere” is invalid for Bulgaria. Here corruption offends even our sense of aesthetics – it is in “sacks and backs”. Two transformations mark the rise of post-democracy in our country.
The first one is the transitions from corruption to endemic corruption, followed by transition from systematic corruption to an intercepted state, in which the prosecutor's office and the state do not displace us even a millimeter from our permanent settlement in the swamp of the most corrupt country in the EU.
The second transformation is related to post-democracy as a political project. With GERB it was not claimed, the state was being eaten away by gold bars, saving hundreds of millions on the budget, but at least the opposite was shyly said. Now we are entering in the new stage where behind the curtains, the post-democracy with a proud goes at the forefront with an active MP candidate who the medias cover more than the presidential candidate, who meets with mayor after mayor, so that no one thinks that there is a level that can afford not to forget about Magnitsky, the Pandora files, the native protests.
Prime or presidential republic
Yes, there is no way a text about the elections no to lead to the Radev-Borisov clash. Whoever are the players on the field, this is the clash that focuses and structures the political turbulence. Boyko Borisov not only ruled a decade, Boyko Borisov and GERB forged the idea of a leadership by Boyko Borisov’s image – a strong man, not only a military man, but a general, a man of the people. After the marriage with the United patriots, this image became even more nationalistic (Northern Macedonia, the waves of refugees that we still see). This image became hegemonic, dominating ideas, attitudes, media and public environment, electoral behavior. It is this hegemonic model that gave birth to many paradoxical discrepancies - its most complete and successful expression today is not Boyko Borisov, but Rumen Radev. GERB's first attempt to deviate from him with Tsetska Tsacheva was a total fiasco. Now GERB is facing the challenge - will they be able to successfully prove themselves on the image of the political leader, which they themselves have introduced and maintained? A paradoxical presidential race is looming - Rumen Radev, supported by BSP and ITN, today is the higher-ranking realization of the model approved by Boyko Borisov. Prof. Gerdzhikov, supported by Borisov and GERB, is a negation of Borisov's model, close to the political profile of the urban right.
Hard or soft national populism
Who says there are no good news. The Bulgarian voters have already constituted two parliaments without extremists and hard nationalists. The trend continues in the third parliament. Falling out of love is always a drama, even more shocking in politics, because it is publicly visible. Annoyed by the loss of popular love, extremists invade civilians and slap women, others try to turn two disgruntled citizens into an anti-refugee crowd, others get vaccinated but hiss against vaccines, others or the same quarrel with journalists … The viewers spectacle 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?' …
The biggest drama of our own national populism is its love for Russia. Whether this love is monetized, energized, etc., does not matter much. It remains an infidelity to the officially declared beloved - the homeland.
Both love and politics do not tolerate empty spaces. The more moderate national populism of the current and future president Rumen Radev is quite successful in the emptied niche.
The red lines or the children's disease of the parties in our country
The children’s disease of political science as a university discipline was for a long time the accent on parties, campaigns, marketing, elections, discussions. Topics like health policy, educational, social etc. policies seemed more boring and not so attractive. Simply put, the important thing is to take power, and what exactly will be done with it then remains blurred, but not as in the beautiful pictures of the Himalayan peaks.
This children’s disease cannot be healed neither by old, nor by new leaders. They continue drawing red lines – one leader is talking again for Istanbul Convention, another leader non-stop dreams of a majority vote, a third, a fourth, a fifth are waving an anti-vax finger. If the citizens don’t permanently trust parties, it is because they see clearly that they live in a different world. In the citizen world, every day their friends and relatives are dying with world record values, businesses are struggling, unemployment suffocates. What Istanbul Convention, what majority voting…Will leaders stop focusing on themselves and will they sit on the student desks to learn something about humility and coalition culture – on how will citizens answer this question depend the results on 14th of November.
Transformation – bottom at full steam, top – squeaking and looping
In the boiling pot of chaos is not easy to be seen the panoramic picture, and it is impressive. Only for a year, after the pandemic, helpless parties, failed parliaments, crisis after crisis, the Bulgarian citizens created two major changes.
Change often rhymes with paradox. The protests in the autumn of 2020 reached none of its concrete demands, but started and catalyzed the transformations. Without a short-term result, but with a powerful effect. First, they created a coalition of transformation. A key pillar in it are the multiple Bulgarian citizens, deploring corruption and supporting demands for a transformation. The other pillar is the high in the Bulgarian spirit, the most famous Bulgarian intellectuals – from Tedi Ushev to Georgi Gospodinov, who categorically and consistently defend the idea of a fresh breath in Bulgarian politics. The third pillar is also densely populated, but not by internal but by external actors - strategic partners of our country such as the United States (opinions of the Congress on Endemic Corruption in Bulgaria, Magnitsky), EU (numerous critical reports), journalistic investigations (Pandora files).
A radical restructuring of the party scene is also a breakthrough. In just one year, three new parties / coalitions of change have emerged, the cards have been shuffled, so there are no guaranteed first and second places, small and large parties.
The citizens’ messages are clear. It is not clear why do politicians do not get them yet.
We want change and this is why we reorder you, we give you power and a chance to use it for our own good, not yours.
We want a new saver, we don’t arrogant, but serving politicians, we do not trust any party enough to give a majority vote (been there, done that). We do not want to make it easy for you. We want you to prove that you can.
When you do that, we will give you our trust and we will reelect you.
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It is time each party and leader to deal with its part of the canals, so we can finally get out of the swamp.