People of Bulgaria send their country plummeting

Bulgaria has experienced the government resignation and is expecting  the new one to arrive. The Bulgarians have been protesting since February, and people do not want to see any current politician in the parliament. "If we allow the protests to last for a long time, these people will not be able to find a real mechanism for solving their problems - this will be the first step towards radicalization," the Minister of Internal Affairs of Bulgaria said.

Mass street anti-government protests that started in February 2013 were triggered by a two-fold increase in prices on electricity in Bulgaria. On February 20, the center-right cabinet of Boyko Borisov (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, GERB) resigned. It is hard to blame him for anything - he only fulfilled his campaign promises and closed four blocks of the Soviet nuclear power plant in Kozloduy and a nuclear power plant project in Belene under the pretext that it was a very expensive and dangerous project for the country. The Bulgarians agreed with him (the referendum on nuclear power in January 2013 was failed by voters), but it did not occur to anyone that the import of electricity would be three times as expensive. Needless to say that higher prices on electricity resulted in higher prices on everything.

The May election was won by "technocrat" Plamen Oresharski of the current coalition government - the alliance between the Socialist party (SPB), ethnic Turks (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) and nationalist party Ataka. The coalition barely has a half of the seats in parliament. This government thoughtlessly appointed 32-year-old media mogul, member of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, Delyan Peevsky, as the Minister for Security. He was fired from the government in 2007 due to corruption allegations.

The second Bulgarian revolution started on 14 June. The revolution resembles a psychic attack. Although the parliament abolished the appointment of Peevsky, the words "Resign!" can be seen in Sofia everywhere, even on municipal garbage cans. Protesters say that they are willing to go to protests to the Parliament of Bulgaria until the current government of Oresharsky steps down. The protests are of distinct civil nature; they are organized through social networks, and all attempts of political parties to stick to the protests are suppressed.

The Bulgarians do not want to see one and the same politicians replacing each other. Is there a way out of the situation?

New elections under the old electoral law will not bring any results. There is a possibility for the introduction of majority voting in the parliament that may replace voting on party lists. Personal responsibility is likely to be replaced with collective one, but this is quite a delusional concept about the majority system.

Bulgaria's problems are originally linked with the wrong course of the country to join the eurozone, refuse from its own energy system, industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, Bulgaria was recognized the poorest country in the EU in 2012. Unemployment sent over 49 percent of the population below the poverty line. The GDP growth did not exceed one percent, and the purchasing power of the population was below 30 percent of the average European level. The birth rate has fallen down to the level of 1947, the country is ranked first in terms of mortality in Europe. Bulgarian stores are inundated with non-Bulgarian products. All this happens in the country of no-risk agriculture that used to feed the Soviet Union with its fruit and vegetables.

Today, Bulgaria is like a beggar, asking German and French bankers for help. The country can not preserve subsidies to farmers. Neither Greece, nor Romania have this problem. Among all the countries that act as beneficiaries of EU savings funds, the intensity of financial assistance to Bulgaria (€7 billion from 2014 to 2020) will be the lowest per capita, Prime Minister Plamen Oresharsky said. Sofia failed to defend its positions to obtain additional resources for the poorest north-western region of Bulgaria. It just so happens that there are no people in Bulgaria, who can negotiate.

To crown it all, the Bulgarians have to listen and nod to offensive official insinuations. French and German ambassadors have recently issued a joint statement criticizing the Bulgarian government, saying that protests in Sofia were organized by groups of people, who receive money for what they do. In fact, the diplomats meant that the protest actions that were conducted in the capital of Bulgaria during the recent month were not truly people's protests. According to the ambassadors, the protests were initiated by certain individuals to solve specific tasks. What kind of individuals are they talking about?

The Bulgarian press and bloggers discuss three versions. The first one is about the "Russian mafia." This is a pretty popular "scapegoat" in Bulgaria . During the first wave of protests, the Bulgarians blamed the Kremlin that was disappointed in the country after Bulgaria refused to cooperate in the field of nuclear power. Today, according to President Rosen Plevneliev, this "Russian mafia" is an "offshore company with vague capitals" that wants to buy up the state pension fund. Bulgaria sells everything, following the orders from Germany and France. Moreover, the Bulgarian praises the French and the Germans for their efforts to plunder the country. "I must say that they (the ambassadors) are our true friends. Real friends say everything straight-forwardly. They are true friends, and we all belong to the European family," Bulgarian Presidnet Plevneliev said.

Another mafia, capable of bribery, is actually the Bulgarian one. It goes about a corrupt alliance of politicians and oligarchs (there are no oligarch in Bulgaria) and Roma. The third version says that the protesters were bribed by the opposition, that is Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, in which the president is a member.

Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev admitted that the government of the country has no clear plan of how to reduce the growing protest activity among the population. "The possible resignation of the government will deepen the crisis, and the country will plunge into a spiral of violence," Yovchev told the BBC. He admits that the current opposition of the state and the people can not continue. "If we let the protests last for a long time, people will not be able to find a real mechanism for solving their problems, and this will be the first step towards radicalization of the situation."

In Bulgaria, there are no problems with the change of power. Instead, there are problems with continuously rising prices on electricity and declining living standards. It was not the Turks, the Masons, the Kremlin, and not even Bulgarian politicians, who created these problems. It all happened because the citizens of Bulgaria wanted it to happen. The current government will not last long, but what's next? There will be no radical improvement in the country , until people realize that Bulgaria needs to count on Russia's help. Bulgaria already has such an experience - the country only needs to enter a new level of cooperation.

Lyuba Lulko

Pravda.Ru

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