“This fascination with caretaker ministers is not the expectation of another savior. No, it is the desire for some people to come to rule in a European way – without stealing you.”
SG: Third parliamentary election this year: do you expect them to change anything?
Raichev: Certainly. This will be the finale of this mini-revolution, which began in July last year, when the prosecution allowed itself to invade the presidency.
SG: That is, do you think that the thinking of the Bulgarian voter for this one year has changed and this change will sublimate now, in the third parliamentary elections?
Raichev: Before that, riots in Bulgaria have always been riots of the poor, those affected, people in a severe economic crisis who can not pay for electricity or medicine. It’s different now. Some mock him for being a “rebellion of the Sith”, but this is not the case. In Bulgaria there are deep and long-term processes that are slow. The slow processes in history are the most important processes. In this case, there are two very slow processes that culminated in a new capacity. First, the Bulgarian is not the poor man he was 30 years ago, he is not the man for whom $ 200 in his restaurant was seen as the pinnacle of possible luxury, and a $ 500 or $ 1,000 salary was his ultimate dream.
SG: And who just before was ready to wait 20 years for a Lada …
Raichev: Yes, then the horror of the transition hit him, the Lada broke, the elevator stopped, the windows broke down, all sorts of horrors. Today’s Bulgarian is no longer a surviving, begging creature. That’s one thing. Secondly, our attitude towards Europe has changed radically. Not in the sense that we have become Eurosceptic, on the contrary: Bulgaria is the most Europositive member. But Europe’s hypnosis has broken down. The Bulgarian goes abroad to Seville, works in Mönchengladbach, studies in Amsterdam, etc.
SG: That is, they look at Europe soberly, they feel on an equal footing?
Raichev: Yes, that’s right. We are simply becoming a European country. And a European country cannot have this kind of governance. Europeans are much more demanding of the government, much more specific and willing to discuss not some huge topics before elections, but simply to think about money, benefits, practical things. Why doesn’t this money go to the common good, but whoever takes it?
SG: And how will these two slow processes change the voting of the Bulgarians now? And you have said it, and others have said it: Bulgarians are constantly voting for some saviors, for some messiahs and leaders. Here, now Slavi Trifonov was another one.
Raichev: Trifonov’s expectation was not so much to save us as to save us. “This one will get rid of that one.” If so, he just didn’t get the job done, even though he tried. This is a failure not because they did not form a government, but because they did not rid us of this kind of system. They call it the “Borisov model”, but this is not the “Borisov model”, it is just our previous existence as some “associated beings”. And now we are one of the Europeans – and we want European governance. This fascination with caretaker ministers is not the expectation of another savior. No, it’s just the desire for some people to come and rule in Europe – without stealing you. Or at least to steal a little, invisibly, silently and not arrogantly. Because the things that these ministers reveal at every turn are shocking. For example: only two hospitals were inspected, in one – organ transplant schemes, in the other – 400 patients prescribed for one month. They mix in two highways – there it turns out that there is no control over the distribution of money. At the same time, they are not doing something systematic at the moment – just wherever you reach, something great comes out. The Bulgarians intend to end this. And they will change, and change, and change players, until those who will stop just that appear.
SG: And are these players visible? Are they already coming out of the locker room on the field?
Raichev: It is very simple: it is a matter of changing generations. People who have studied in Europe come, they do not have the complex from Europe. This is not something extraordinary or supernatural, we see it: they want younger, more smiling people who look like European politicians. I’m not saying that flowers and roses will come at all – just, thank God, an important stage in our lives is coming to an end. People will do it as they adjust to the new political system. This is not an idea, they do not say to themselves “we want such and such a system, let’s do it”. No, this becomes a touch. But there is one danger: people may at some point be disgusted by the inability of politicians to form a coalition, and then they can overthrow parliament as such and form a presidential republic.
SG: In your opinion, as a sociologist: what will be the results of these elections?
Raichev: It is very difficult to say, because nothing is known about this new party that is being talked about. Its future participants hint that it will exist, but as ministers at the moment they are correctly refraining from anything more. It is good that they are not talking about the project, but it is obviously swelling and at the moment it is very difficult to estimate how big it is. I took part in a discussion with political scientist Stoycho Stoychev, who said that according to him they could collect between 400,000 and 700,000 votes, which is a lot. If we put it in the order of half a million, we get a slightly paradoxical picture. I do not believe that Trifonov will receive less than half a million – plus or minus. I do not believe that GERB will get something very different from this half a million again, so are the BSP and the DB. So if the new ones come in, they become five and a half million. This is a very interesting situation in which no one dominates, and we have five very different parties that will have to form a government. If you ask me, this time they will succeed.
SG: And what will this government be like?
Raichev: Coalition, program or something similar. Here we must add 300,000, which the MRF will probably receive, and if the smallest current party holds – another hundred thousand. And maybe one of the nationalist ones. When we add it all up, there are about 3 million votes. That is, this is the usual number of voters in Bulgaria. Probably in this order will be the results. Of great importance is, of course, who will be the first of these five, but in the end it is not decisive – it will only determine the sequence of moves. The important thing is that they must form a coalition and drop some of the dividing lines.
SG: Which to drop out, which to stay, what coalition?
Raichev: At the moment GERB and MRF are in isolation, they have been isolated. But the others isolated themselves, mostly from each other. This isolation and this self-isolation must fall, otherwise the Bulgarians will expel the parliament and demand another kind of power.
SG: What is your personal expectation for this future new party? What are your observations as a political scientist?
Raichev: They very strictly observe their obligation not to be politicians for now. I see the following: it seems to be a party of right-wing people. As economists, they have this kind of right-wing thinking, but as far as I can see, they plan to seriously cool things down to avoid left-right opposition. Petkov has two indicative statements on the issue. The first is about the red line with poverty. He says: I am a right-wing person, but I am not okay with 42% below the poverty line. The second part of this sentence sounds like a leftist idea. And his other statement, which refers to the difference between him and Nikolay Vassilev: a right-wing program should not be made at the moment, because “closing the leaks”, that is – fighting corruption, must be accompanied by an increase in living standards. Such productions give Petkov the potential for dialogue across the spectrum. Even the right will accept this as an argument, and the left will be glad that their priorities are taken into account.
SG: And as ministers, what have they shown so far? Did they demonstrate this left-right policy you are talking about?
Raichev: It seems to me that they did something important: they reached into the wounds and started cleaning them. Of course, nothing can be done in two months, but the approach is correct. Corruption simply needs to stop – and they seem to intend to do just that if their political project emerges and they take power. Of course, they will not take it alone. President Radev, creating this government, also created something like an invisible coalition: there are “reds”, there are “blues”, there are just experts. And as we see: Bulgarians are very happy with it.
SG: And what steps are ahead until the elections, what is the calendar?
Raichev: Either we are in the elections on November 7, 14 and 21 – or only on November 14 and 21. If Cornelia Ninova keeps her promise to return to office on September 7, President Radev could dissolve parliament at 8 – and then the elections will be on November 7. He did not want a “2 in 1” election, but he has already given a little back and now it seems more likely that he will give the parliament some more time, for example for the budget update, and will dissolve it on 15 September. If he dissolves it on the 15th, he has the right to call elections on November 14. 90 percent, in my opinion, is the probability that on November 14 we will have a “2 in 1”, on November 21 a second round of the presidential elections. A second round is inevitable, no matter how many votes the president gets, because the list of candidates is very long and he cannot win in the first round.
SG: If there is a political project “Petkov-Vassilev”, will they be able to prepare for these two months?
Raichev: They certainly can’t make a party, as you know. But there are side moves. They can simply take an existing party, as the king once did, as Bozhkov did in the penultimate parliamentary elections. The other option is to enter a coalition through the movement. But they have not yet announced what they have decided and we can only guess.
The interview was published in DW
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