Last week was the Bulgarian Parliamentary election. I though I would throw some ides and commentary out there. I actually voted, from West Los Angeles that is. There is a Bulgarian consulate here on Willshire, a subsection of the embassy in Washington D.C.. From my knowledge it is ran by the ministry of foreign affairs. Anyhow, there was a section, close by and I voted for real, the first time in my life. It looked like a pretty good turnout, 60% or so.
The election was change themed, like everything else these day. The socialist party and the “turkish party” had it handed to them, along with a former king party that was shown the door, literary. The winners were a fresh party, headed by the mayor of Sofia, more on that later.
Let me start with the socialist party. They had the popular vote last time around and did what I expected them to do – steal all they can and try to do it again. Nothing new, really. They made a coalition with the the “turkish” party and the old kings party. I put the quotes on the turkish party, because its not what they are called. Their name is “The movement for rights and freedoms”, catchy eh? Its run by some turks in the south eastern part of Bulgaria, close to Turkey.
That is where their votes come from, along with tremendous block voting and bussing in of turkish bulgarian passport holders residing in Turkey. They also get a fair chunk form buying the votes of gypsies everywhere in Bulgaria. How can they afford that? Over the last parliaments, they have been holding the ministry seats for finance, agriculture and some other hot areas that receive a huge chunk of european money. They of course naturally steal it all, hence the EU sanctions and stops sending them, good choice but not the best one.
The kings party, translated into national movement, Simeon the second, didn’t get the 4% threshold and is out. Now here is a classic story. Communists throw the kings family and everything along with that, somewhere in the 1940s and his family moves to Spain. They have like a castle there and what not in there and are close with the Spanish monarchy descendants. So around 2000 or so, Simeon, one of the children comes back, forms a hot party, gets all the old people who vote socialist usually and becomes prime minister. During the four years he manages to take large chunks of Bulgarian property, such as forests and what not and makes it his own, because the empire owned it a while back and he was king. Sounds like a good reason to me. The last parliament his seats were reduced, but stayed in power with the communists, and now has practically his family voting for him. Looks like he is cleverly getting out, sadly alive.
So now comes the GERB. The new party, taking almost 40%. Mr. Borisov has the hopes of everyone for change. To me he is like Obama in the U.S.. Looks promising, even to me, but has no idea what he wants, how to do it and who should do it. He is also very good at saying he inherits problems, but can’t fix them. Now here is a guy, looks like a mafia minion, large build, almost shaved head, talks slow. He was a body guard of the last chair of the communist party before 1989, Todor Jivkov, basically the ruler for a while. He then slowly comes up to be chief of Bulgarian police then mayor of Sofia. Hasn’t done anything as a mayor. His excuse has been that the government hasn’t given a fair share of budget to the capital. No potholes filled, traffic has jammed, the city is basically a mess. There is also no solution of where to put the trash and for months at a time it has stayed in trash bins at some points.
I can’t forecast his success or if he will have any. To me, he is just another communist, like the rest of them. It looks like he has potential, but I doubt he has the desire or power to implement any significant changes. Like Obama, talk but walk? My doubts come from the idea of bulgarian politics. Back in around 1990 where democracy came along, many new parties were formed, including the democratic party. These parties you might think were because everything became free, but no. They were actually fake shows. Created by the communist party and filled by it. There are recent developments that show that most of the opposition is actually composed of old party people. Mr. Borisov looks just like them, but lets see what he will do.
This is was kind of long, but there will be more to come. I also wrote this offline, while waiting for the internet guy to spread the light of the internets to my new apartment. Leave some comments.
Btw, here is another view from the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13996439
-George
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