It seems to me that we have little time to convince this gentleman that we have not elected him an absolute monarch, but – for now – only an MP. In the coming days it is possible to elect him prime minister – by a majority in the National Assembly, but even after that, he will remain subject to the Bulgarian constitution and laws that provide for power in the country to be divided and balanced between different institutions and institutional roles. Everything Mara got up to Kiril Petkov, only Fandakova and the municipal government remained a flaw in the country.
Apart from the obvious well-being of his self-confidence, such walks between the powers of the institutions and the imperative of legal norms are obviously a legacy of the future prime minister from his patron and mentor in politics – Rumen Radev. After all, Radev was the one who freely defined his role as the leader of the protest from the position of the country’s president – a position that presupposes and obliges its holder to do things other than leading one of the parties in a civil conflict. The problem in this case is not so much about Radev and Petkov, but about our own civic self-consciousness, which resignedly accepts and even enjoys the frivolous excursions of authorized people between the imperative requirements of the law and the institutions.
Everyone – almost everyone – seemed to agree that the protest was over (some once again said the transition was over), and that now was the time for civil unification over the results of the last election and their institutional projections. If so, it would be an expression of civic maturity for both supporters and opponents of the political forces that have won as a result of the change to require their representatives to take on the work for which they are authorized. When parliament elects Kiril Petkov as prime minister, his job will be to resolve a series of national crises in which the country finds itself – health, inflation, institutional, a crisis of civic confidence and unity. The local elections are in 2023 and Mr. Petkov as a party leader will have the opportunity to reach them.
The situation of public opposition and conflict that led to this year’s failed election and the last election – hopefully already successful – has apparently created a growing messianic self-confidence in Petkov, which he increasingly exerts as pressure on the rules of public decency. created primarily for empowered people like himself. It is time for public opinion and institutions to show Petkov and his colleagues the outlines of the legitimate sphere of their activity that people expect. We have seen Radevshchina and Rashkovshchina – in which the rules and powers of an official government have been stretched to the absurd dimensions of unlimited power – unlimited neither by legitimate institutional counterbalance nor by the culture and upbringing of those in power. If we don’t say “stop” today, it may be too late tomorrow.
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