/ world today news/ Is it possible in the poorest country in the European Union, where the neoliberal model has ruined healthcare, education and social policy, and where, after the Covid crisis, thousands have lost their jobs, that people vote en masse for right-wing political forces? Turns out, yes. The unique case is Bulgaria, where the BSP reached its historical bottom, taking only 480,000 votes and remaining in third place after the party of the showman Stanislav Trifonov.
And how did it come to this disgrace for the left?
It all started with the introduction of direct election for the president. In fact, it started much earlier, but a particular watershed is the direct choice. The BSP made the same mistake that the SDF once made, riding the wave of misunderstood populism and ill-conceived pseudo-direct democracy. Passing for the most democratic intra-party direct elections, they are actually only practiced by one German party and the British Conservatives. It is significant that direct selection has historically only been introduced in deeply troubled organizations. The Bulgarian example, as already mentioned, is the SDS. Ninova’s erstwhile associates thought that with a direct election of the president, the old right would solve all its problems and rise again in the political sky. The exact opposite happened – one year after the SDS elected Martin Dimitrov as leader directly, the party finally split. The result is that the party chairwoman was able to concrete herself categorically, as well as crush any attempts at dissent or criticism. And, of course, self-forgetfulness and self-loathing logically followed from here. And as our respected political scientists and more say, direct elections as a format only intensify competition (instead of the traditional BSP camaraderie and dialogue), and with it quarrels and conflicts.
For more than a year, the BSP led by its chairwoman was focused on internal problems and discords, purges, repressions, courts and scandals. All this was happening while the whole of Bulgaria was seething and seething, and while other political forces were reaping dividends from popular discontent against GERB’s rule. When the party should have radiated stability and alternativeness, a kind of breath of fresh air from GERB’s iron grip, it radiated paranoia, suspicion, repressiveness, intolerance, disrespect for freedom of speech (expressed through purges, repressions and exclusions or removals of long-time socialist functionaries and activists).
It was even scarier when people saw the lists of the BSP – full of little-known and often unrelated personalities, some of whom even have an anti-communist and right-wing past. Many of them were also frankly forced into the various districts and regions, instead of local representatives of the socialist party.
And the logical conclusion came – BSP achieved weaker results than it has achieved for decades. Across Europe, the normal practice in such a situation is for the Executive Bureau and the Chairperson to resign, taking responsibility for the third or fourth lost election. Well, the Executive Bureau resigned, but Cornelia Ninova decided that she would cling to power at all costs, disregarding all ethics and normal political responsibility.
And what did Nineveh do instead? Not only did he decide to continue ruling, but he continued to ignore (most likely out of fear) the collective bodies of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Instead of doing the decent thing, President Ninova has decided to once again try to apply various tricks to hold on to power, hoping to become a serviceable crutch for any government that looms on the horizon. She proposed to gather the regional and municipal chairmen of the BSP at “Positano-20”. For what purpose? To be held accountable and accountable!? No, nothing like that!
He gathers the presidents of the BSP from all over the country in order to “build” them, because in all parts of Bulgaria dissatisfaction is boiling over against Ninova’s policy. Ninova does not want to take responsibility, but to continue with her purges and repressions in the BSP.
But it looks like this time the tricks and tricks she’s been using for several years won’t go through. The second largest organization of the BSP – the one in Plovdiv, kindly declined the invitation of Cornelia Ninova, reminding her how she repeatedly refused them dialogue and discussion. The refusal of the people of Plovdiv to play to Ninova’s whistle is especially reasonable, considering that she completely replaced the lists in Plovdiv with unknown and mostly unrecognizable faces, despite the decisions and wishes of the local bodies and member assets. On top of that, the chairperson also appointed a parallel pre-election headquarters in Plovdiv, which not only angered the people of Plovdiv, but also made the election work more difficult. With these actions, Ninova managed to achieve a twice weaker result of less than 20,000 votes for the BSP in the city under the hills, while in previous years the Plovdiv organization (under the leadership of the illegally expelled Georgi Gergov) managed to win 40,000 votes and more.
Cornelia Ninova’s idea of convening district and municipal chairmen of the BSP has nothing to do with any report on the elections (especially from her). Her intentions are extremely transparent – she wants to shift the responsibility for the election failure from the sick head to the healthy one, i.e. of the municipal and regional chairmen. In addition, there is another, even more important goal – even before the elections, when the Ninovists were listening to stories about how the BSP was supposed to be an inevitable factor in the next National Assembly (interesting, why not the winner of the elections?), the leader Ninova promised that will hold a kind of party referendum on the party’s course of action after the vote. Well, now Ninova wants to use the familiarization of the local leaders as an alleged referendum of some kind, so that it can later justify itself when it concludes an unprincipled coalition.
Frightened by the fact that the socialists in Plovdiv, Pernik, Vidin, Varna and many other towns want her to take responsibility, as befits a European politician, Ninova felt where the wind was blowing and still decided to convene the National Council of the BSP, hoping is that since the opposition votes in it are too few, she will get away with it.
The fact is that there are few oppositionists in the National Council who do not unquestioningly serve Ninova and the interests behind it. But are all of them really a true opposition and alternative opinion? We’ll see.
Anyway, the main thing here is that Cornelia Ninova wants to offer herself to the new power in our country – whatever it is, using illegitimate forums, which she will present “as the will of the party”. A false “will” that Ninova will use to justify its unprincipled coalitions.
There is information that negotiations are underway for a new cabinet headed by “There is such a people” with the support of the DPS. It is obvious that Cornelia Ninova wants to push herself to the new emerging coalition in order to be in power at any cost. But the thing is that no one wants to form a coalition or work with the BSP. All new (or new-old) parties have categorically made it clear that they will form a government without the BSP. Trifonov’s party, as well as Democratic Bulgaria, made similar statements. And if the three new formations also have the support of the DPS, then even arithmetically their need for the thinned group of the BSP completely disappears.
If Kornelia Ninova does not take responsibility for the unprecedented in the history of the BSP electoral failure that she caused, it is not yet known what damage will be done to the organizationally, electorally, ideologically and in every way weakened left.
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