Recently, the call “Vote!” increasingly evokes not passive apathy but active irony – “Well, who should I vote for, man, how many times should I vote for these... (unprintable expressions follow).” This attitude is quite understandable given the oppressive vicious circle in which the state government has been spinning for four years now. But for me the call “Vote!” is more than an invitation to sacrifice 15 minutes of your Sunday to “sign up” in the polling station. In our role as citizens, we are called not just to “buy” something in the political market once every four years – or at six months, as we have been doing lately in our country. I know it will sound frivolous and frivolous, but we have the commitment to participate in the creation and development of the political platforms that will demand our trust in the next elections.
The entrenchment of the oligarchic system in Bulgaria during the last quarter of a century closed the political process in the vicious circle of the foretold winners of each successive election. The political set of the organized oligarchy has successfully created its extended clientele, and the closing of the circle between big money, the prosecution and the court, the media and “our companies” made the results of any citizen poll completely predictable. If public support for “our people” start shaking – we produce new “political projects” – ready-to-wear, pattern-printed. This perpetual mobile comes out – temporarily - derailed only if extraordinary shocks occur or in conditions of motivated external intervention.
This format of “facade democracy” further strengthens public passivity and indifference to a political process that does not depend on our will and interests. The vicious circle can only be broken with a massive upsurge of public discontent, which is able to change – at least in part “the rules of the game” and to shift the conditions and dependencies in the broadcast of political representation. The protests of the 1990s created powerful preconditions for political change, but those that followed in 2013-14 and 2020 did nothing to change the system of oligarchic “facade democracy”. What is the reason for this?
In the 1990s, there was a strong and massive civil movement for social change in Bulgaria. The concrete political forms that this movement produced were not particularly efficient and effective – for a number of reasons, the SDF, both as a coalition and as a party, had short-term and mixed achievements. However, the very fact of strong and mobilized public support for change created the conditions for the UDF management teams of 1991-92 and 1997-2001 to achieve significant results, albeit for a short time. Unfortunately, although massive, the protests of 2013-14 as well as the protests of 2020 failed to produce a political alternative – neither leadership nor party – institutional. The SDF had flaws and failures, but it provided political representation for the social movement for change. The waves of public discontent of 2014 and 2020 ended without radiating their political representation. As there is no fish – and cancer is a fish. In 2014, a compromise government between GERB and the Reform Bloc was formed, in which the oligarchy, kicked out of the front entrance, conveniently entered through the back... In 2021, the protests ended with the smell of rotten fish in the central square and the appointment of Rumen Radev to a group of his acquaintances with an elite education for a reformist political force...
If we alone cannot meet the challenge of being ruled by a militia oligarchy, perhaps our outside allies will help us...? In the 1970s, Garabed watched Kirkor go to the station every day and wait for someone. “Who are you waiting for, Kirkor?” “I am waiting for the Americans...” “Wait, Kirkor, you were waiting for the Russians before the 9th...?” “Well, didn't they come...?” Who are we waiting for now? After 1989, Kirkor “waited” the Americans – “the Westerners”. They reached out, took us into their elite clubs – NATO and the EU, but we're uncomfortable again... It's not what we expected... We've been slapped with Magnitsky stamps here and there, but we've pretended that it doesn't affect us... Now we're split in two – the less intelligent are waiting for the Russians again... The more pretentious are secretly waiting for “our European and Atlantic partners” to help us get rid of the crooks in power...
Neither one will wait, nor the other. The “cousins” they ran out of gas for the tanks – they have only one big mouth spewing false propaganda... The European and Atlantic partners do not intend to come to drive our rubbish out of power. Why? Because they know that by expelling these, we will bring in new ones – same as these... Ladies and gentlemen, salvation is not lurking anywhere. It's time to roll up our sleeves and cry out loud. Only adversity will teach us that if we sit and wait – we will only wait for more of the same, and worse. It will teach us that when we say A, we must also say B and C – let's say the whole alphabet. We need to organize ourselves, bring out the smarter and more conscientious among us to support, select and strictly control. “Vote!” – for yourself, for your future, for your cooperation with your fellow citizens, for your own awareness and knowledge – what you want, what you can and how you should do it. Rescuers and liberators don't wait. Do not hope for mercy from the status quo. Don't beat yourself up and don't condescend – the storm will not pass! The storm is getting stronger and will blow harder and harder.
The author's comment was published on his Facebook page