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Anastasia Balezdrova

Nineteen days after their beginning, the protests in Bulgaria are not subsiding despite the contrary claims of the government and commentators. Nobody can predict how they will end but the government in Sofia is certainly feeling uncomfortable and pressured.

This is evident from the discussion about the events of recent weeks which has started in the European Parliament too.

Political analyst Vladimir Shopov is talking with GRReporter about the changes resulting from the protests and their implications in the long term.

How has the situation in Bulgaria gone so far as to be considered by the European Parliament and how would you comment on the votes for the parties?

The occasion for a discussion on Bulgaria actually dates back to several months ago, when there were attempts to schedule it for September but the events of the past few weeks have obviously proved a sufficient argument for it to take place at this moment.

I am a little surprised by the position of the European Green Party which often sides with the Socialists. But it is evident that the more comprehensive information about the government of Bulgaria which is reaching the European institutions is starting to influence even those political groups in the European Parliament which are closer to Oresharski’s office.

From this point of view, I think that there is a gradual accumulation of understanding of what is actually happening in Bulgaria. I would say that, for a certain period of time, the information reached there but was, in a sense, filtered by the Secretariat of the Party of European Socialists (PES). However, a growing number of PES’ member parties are realizing the dependence of this cabinet on Volen Siderov and I think that, for many of them, such a situation would be unacceptable, although they are in a difficult position because Sergey Stanishev is currently Secretary of the PES. In addition, we know that the European Parliament elections will take place after 10 months and it is certain that they are reluctant to face additional difficulties in terms of these elections.

Do you think that the European future of Bulgaria is threatened in some way?

I do not want to imagine that this is a realistic threat, although all have some concerns that there is a battle in the hearts and souls of the present government between its historic instinct and the present political realities. That is why many people are worried about what will prevail. Moreover, in recent days, we have seen some downright retrograde reactions to the current situation. I mean the statement of chairman of parliament Michail Mikov as well as the attitudes and language towards the protesters in Bulgaria.

It is more interesting to me that, in just one month, the government has been able, albeit imperceptibly due to its domestic helplessness, to almost raze to the ground the opportunities for a normal European policy. This is because José Manuel Barroso had received the new Prime Minister with several messages during his first visit. The first was that, for them, the voice of the people in the streets of the country was a much more accurate and legitimate assessment of its condition. He also met him, stating that the monitoring of the country will continue and that the Schengen membership cannot even be discussed within this context. Then, two ministers in this cabinet made several blunders. Including that over the past two days, we have witnessed a direct misleading of the public opinion with the statement of the Minister of Economy, namely that Bulgaria is entering a regime of a direct payment of fines in a criminal procedure.

The greatest danger for me now is the paralysis of the European policy by this cabinet from now on and any additional stultification of Bulgaria’s membership. I do not want to think about categories that go beyond that.

How long will this government survive in your opinion?

This remains the most difficult question. It is because there are no circumstances that are directly pressing it. Indeed, this is not the scale of protests which we are accustomed to associate with the fall of governments from a historical point of view. The severity of the economic crisis and the frustration which were present in 1997 are absent today and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is not in that international isolation in which it was at that time.

The life of this cabinet is very unstable due to the extremely severe paralysis into which it has fallen; it is due to the simple reason that, on the one hand, it is unable to adequately respond to the present social environment in the country. It is unable to construct elementary governmental stability and normality both in its composition and in parliament. Thirdly, a configuration in which Volen Siderov is the key to the functioning of the parliament makes pointless any desire or pretention of a meaningful governmental perspective.

These, in my opinion, are the factors that will undermine the stability of this cabinet. Moreover, whether we will see the fall of the government within the context of the current wave of protests or the following one early in the autumn or later, their main meaning goes beyond the political results that they can achieve in the short term. Because their actual meaning is to strengthen this culture of intolerance to the resounding government outrages, increase the readiness for civil activities on a daily basis and to be persistent as regards various topics related to the development of the country. All governments ruling in such environment, like this one, will be unstable.

Some commentators believe that the protests are subsiding. How do you see their future?

I am not sure that the protests are subsiding. Unfortunately, we are witnessing a "war of interpretations" as to what is happening in the country. It is passing through a quantitative underestimation of the number of protestors as well.

To the contrary, in my opinion, the more this protest continues, the more sustainable it will become. It is not necessary to perceive this sustainability as a three-month presence of people in the square without interruption. However, this sense of intensifying mutual civil solidarity that we are witnessing carries the guarantees I have already mentioned.

I think that what has been happening in recent days is essential, namely the increasing support for the protests in the country by the people who are not currently living in Bulgaria, in fact the number of the cities and people declaring their support for the protests has increased in just a few days. I think that this is a very important development because it will be harder for the people who are protesting at present to achieve their goals without the support and participation of the people who are living and working outside the country.

So, I do not think that the protests are languishing and that they will stop.

Of course, they cannot go on forever and this is clear to everyone. Anyway, whether they achieve their immediate political goal related to the resignation of the government or not, the fact that it has been paralyzed by the protests for such a long time portends its political inability to govern for a long period of time.

What is the alternative to the government of Bulgaria in the event of early elections in your opinion?

The question of "what comes next" is often being raised in Bulgaria at present. I think that it prevents a lot of people from going out in the streets. Unfortunately, its answer may not be simple as we really are caught in a political system in which there is a serious distrust in almost all existing political parties.

From this point of view, the longer-term change will come by changing not only the actors in the political system but also the culture and the manner in which they govern. Because the reality is that we can hardly expect a dramatic reconfiguration of the party system only by means of these protests and only with the fall of this government.

Actually, this is about a political change that, if things evolve properly, should happen in a few steps. These of course include the emergence of new political characters. However, in the more immediate term, the guarantees as regards the improvement of the situation of the country are not associated with the rapid and sudden emergence of some new parties, "white swallows", but with the change in the manner of ruling as a result of this constant public pressure.

The right political spectrum is not presented in the Bulgarian Parliament, although the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party considers itself a right-wing party. Do you see something happening in the right political space or a new idea that is evolving and that can change the manner and culture of ruling?
 
I do not doubt that, because of the protests, a more unified right political subject will appear. At this stage, I think that it is too early to predict whether it will ultimately be a coalition between political parties or if a new single political subject will be created. There are different opinions on this issue, including among the parties which are involved in this discussion.

To predict what will happen, we must realize that these parties will face an unresolved dilemma. And it is related to whether they are organizing themselves as a right political subject or as political parties with different ideological profiles which are just coalescing around the idea for a new type of politics.

So far, we have no answer to this question because the negotiations are more like negotiations between parties which want to declare a new manner of doing politics and they are not so much an expression of their will to necessarily be the basis of a single political subject.

This is because many people have doubts that the Green party and Meglena Kuneva’s party can be the basis of a right subject. I expect that, at the end of this process, regardless of its composition, we will have a new right-wing configuration that will look different from what we had in the last elections.

How would you comment on the division which some are trying to make between the people who are protesting at present and those who protested in February?

These divisions are fairly obvious attempts to impose a particular interpretation, to place obstacles in the way of the sense of community between the different groups of people who have gone out to protest in recent years. We saw divisions like "Sofia - the rest of the country", "satisfied - hungry," etc. This is pretty obvious and a known historical arsenal of the BSP. I would say that, purely analytically, there is no doubt that this is a process of accumulation and cultivation of a mindset and culture of intolerance and civic action, which we have largely ignored so far. We have had many examples of such behaviour over the past years - from smaller causes related to neighbourhood parks and overdevelopment and this kind of problem to large and important social and political protests such as those of last summer and in February. I think that this is rather a matter of accumulation and culmination of this culture of active citizenship and intolerance. Many people, including those who are related to the present government, are sufficiently aware of the process. That is why they are constantly trying, acutely and persistently, to draw dividing lines between the protesters.

How would you comment on the role of the media in these protests?

In general, we often comment on what has been happening to the Bulgarian media in recent years, on the degree of concentration of ownership and power in the media sector. From this point of view, I think what is happening now is a positive development because we have seen that they have the minimum strength to at least partially recover their independence and the ability to reflect and comment on what is happening in Bulgarian society more adequately.

Of course, there are whole segments of the media publicity that continue to be blocked by this concentration of ownership and they offer their readers a completely parallel world.

We have also seen significant resistance from the public media by declaring a firm stand in defence of their independence and professionalism. I think we have a decent level of coverage and analysis of events.

Anyway, we must henceforth pay significant attention to this issue. I think that it is necessary to change some basic ways of functioning of the media, to expand the scope for the involvement of on-line editions in covering the media reality. Our televisions have press review sections which pay more attention to what is written in a newspaper with a circulation of 5,000 to 6,000 copies rather than to what is written and commented on a website that is visited by hundreds of thousands of people a day. These changes in the media environment need to be taken to improve its quality.