Democratic governance is distinguished by a high degree of public accessibility - transparency. Management is not theater and not everything in the management process can be open to observation. But when the power really originates from the civil community and is controlled by it, the transparency of the decisions made is high enough to allow an adequate and competent assessment by the public of the process and results in the governance of the state.
This commented on "Facebook" Ognyan Minchev.
When the government is authoritarian - elitist-oligarchic, it closes itself to society, goes behind the scenes
and is increasingly dependent on organized private interests, which are too often at odds with the national interest. This is also one of the short definitions of oligarchy as a form of government since the time of Plato - "short circuit" (shortcut) between non-public private interests and public institutions and public figures of the state.
Bulgaria has gone most of the way between the radical opening of the power process for public monitoring and literal public "invasion", and the closing of the state administration to effective mechanisms of civil-public control. In the first months and years after November 10, 1989, a number of political decisions were directly dictated by radicalism in the street - so much so that at one time anyone could go to the only (then) television of "San Stefano" and to enter "Around the world and unas" - to deliver another ultimatum to the authorities.
Today we are increasingly moving towards the other pole - towards a growing impenetrability of political decisions for civil surveillance and for institutional control.
Without reaching an authoritarian seizure of power by a "strong hand" - be it presidential or someone else's - we are already on the threshold of lost public control over the process of government. So far, the key word of this closure of political decisions to civil society is "chaos".
In three years - six parliamentary elections. Growing obstructionism between political parties and parliamentary factions, heightened rivalry between public institutions in the service of personal and/or corporate goals, administrative paralysis. Deep erosion of political culture, of decency in public communication between empowered representatives of the Bulgarian voter. Poodles, poodles, "fat coffee" in the lap of unknown by whom empowered "godfathers" of the oligarchic-political process...
The opening of another National Assembly once again reminded us how chaos and ostentatious conflict hide behind-the-scenes interests that have no motivation to show themselves "in the light". On Wednesday, the parliament deadlocked in the election of the president. On Thursday, the day began with a blockade and negotiations in successive parliamentary "breaks". Suddenly - we have "white smoke", the choice is made. The fact of the election is positive because it creates a basis for the further parliamentary process. But the negotiation procedures, completely hidden from the public, show the increasing degree of derivation of the political interest from its representativeness of the civil community and the national interest. We are at the height of the "Oriental-Byzantine" a mode of political communication that we can define with the metaphor "now I will cut your hat".
The cut of the hat is the forerunner of the authoritarian thrust,
which will logically result from the fact that once again in our country the power is "rolling down the street". This may be the street outside Parliament - and even the street inside Parliament, but this is an alarmingly high rate of loss of political legitimacy that is offset by a rapidly expanding backroom. In the vacuum of civic attention and civic interest (only a third of our fellow citizens found it necessary to vote), thinly disguised prerequisites for authoritarian usurpation of public power are growing. Attempts at such usurpation have been creeping up since 2021. "The Assembly" and some constitutional changes temporarily blunted the culmination of the authoritarian project. They silenced her and collapsed in successive skirmishes of political irresponsibility...
At first glance, the authoritarian threat may seem illusory. Let's not forget that apart from personal megalomania and lust for power, it grows from two roots. The first - the hidden economic and political resources behind the scenes. The second - the growing public dissatisfaction, increasingly subject to populist illusions and populist manifestos. When the two fundamental premises come together - the facade of today's political chaos will collapse into nothingness and expose the new harsh truth - citizens will no longer have even the nominal right to control their own national life.
The authoritarian climax may not be abrupt, radical, violent...
After all, we are in Europe in the 21st century. It can be dressed - especially initially - in a velvet glove, based on an urgent need for "national salvation"; and to set high noble goals.
In the next moment, the man with the "strong hand" from Sofia will line up next to the people with the "strong hand" in Budapest, Belgrade, behind which stands "the big strong hand" of the Kremlin. These are not nightmares - these are realities that we better guard against.
How to protect ourselves? Good question...