BULGARIA POLITICS

The current ruling coalition comprising the BSP, DPS and Ataka is busy digging into the GERB party sewers frantically shovelling wagonloads of slime to pour over Boyko Borisov's head – accusations of financial mismanagement, corrupt cronyism, gross intrusion into citizens’ privacy and so on and so forth - in the hope that the muck will be so sticky that its stink will remain in voters’ nostrils come the next election. So how will posterity assess the legacy of the "Greatest Living Bulgarian"?

Something has gone very wrong in the EU's poorest state. Because things are so complicated, in an inimitably Bulgarian way, politicians and pundits try to explain what's at the pith of the current crisis through drawing similes with civic turmoil unfolding in places the world knows more about.

Even the chance observer of events in Bulgaria during the past several months cannot but see that the ongoing street protests, whilst being sparked by a number of unthought-over staff appointments by the current fragile parliamentary majority, have been conditioned by events dating back to the previous rulers, GERB. It is temptingly easy to focus on the street rallies of the "intelligent and beautiful," but to get to the larger picture, one needs to remember the runup to the current spate of public discontent – which will in turn explain why Bulgaria is where it's at at the moment.

Seen from London, Washington and Berlin, Boyko Borisov was a good man. He was autocratic, true - but Bulgaria did need a bit of a strong hand after the perceived licentiousness of the Three-Party Coalition which ruled the country in 2005-2009. With his blunt style and rash manners, Borisov beguiled the West which, gripped in its own economic and political troubles, cared less and less about what happened in an unimportant corner of the Balkans that had neither oil, nor home-grown terrorism, nor nuclear weapons - and where an imminent war was not to be expected.

Suffice it to say that this is Bulgaria's (now former) top political establishment. If you have any free time, you might want to try to identify who is who in this collection of inimitable faces, sentiments and attitudes photographed by one of this country's foremost photographers, Nadezhda Chipeva.

Thanks to Capital Weekly for kindly allowing Vagabond to reprint what will probably go down in history as a superb example of Bulgarian photojournalism.

Under Communism ‒ just over 20 years ago ‒ political jokes proliferated, and in the absence of any media not controlled by the state, were the natural outlet for people's sentiments regarding the regime. Jokes in those days travelled faster than the Workers' Deed newspaper, faster than even the announcements masquerading as news the government promulgated through its television channel.

I know this will sound like a bad joke ‒ or "rant" some might say, but I guarantee that every word of this is true. And I want to apologise to all Mexicans for drawing any comparisons between their country and Bulgaria.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has admitted on camera that he ordered Bulgaria's customs to terminate a probe into the doings of an allegedly dubious entrepreneur. Yet nothing has happened, indicating that GERB's sworn policy of fighting organised crime and applying the law equally to everyone is nothing but propaganda designed to fool both the EU and Bulgaria's own citizens into believing that something is being done to implement legal and law enforcement reforms.

Just after the fall of Communism in late 1989, the government-run Bulgarian media were in a state of both fear and anticipation. Having been a part of the state propaganda apparatus for so many years newspapers, television and radio stations feared the system of repression had not yet gone, but anticipated a forthcoming new one ‒ where freedom of speech would become a Constitutional right. Fear prevailed, however. News of mass pro-democracy rallies taking place in the centre of Sofia went unreported by local journalists.

A phalanx of EU ambassadors, including those of the UK, Germany, France, The Netherlands and current EU president Denmark, lining up in a concerted show of support for a piece of domestic Bulgarian legislation and the political party (GERB) that introduced it? The American ambassador sending strongly-worded press releases to assert his unequivocal support for a Bulgarian law? Just stopping short of saying "... or else!"

Anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of time in Bulgaria will have identified two major aspects of life here. To begin with, few things, if any, are really what they seem. And next, despite all protestations, declarations and proclamations to the contrary, despite small gestures and acts performed by politicians of various hues designed to create the impression otherwise, Bulgaria remains staunchly in Russia's sphere of influence ‒ at least in spirit, if not in real politics.

If we are to assume that Rosen Plevneliev won last year's presidential election in a free and fair ballot (a fact disputed by a number of organisations and observers who reported widespread fraud, buying of votes and a manipulative media environment), then we should be asking what he has achieved, or failed to achieve, in the five months he has been in office.

The answer, to put it succinctly, is nothing.

Ever wondered who Bulgaria's biggest advertiser in the media is? No, it's not companies with traditionally hefty publicity budgets such as British Airways, Rolex watches, Volkswagen cars or LUKoil. It is... the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture.

Data published by Kapital weekly reveals that in 2009 and 2010 the ministry spent on advertising respectively 930,000 and 750,000 leva excluding VAT. In 2011 the figure rose to 1.8 million leva. In 2012 the Agriculture Ministry plans to spend 4 million leva of EU funds on advertising in the local media.

The facts are simple: 11 out of the 15 members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Holy Synod were agents for the Communist-era secret police, according to an official statement by the state agency responsible for the declassification of Communist files. Bulgaria's senior clergy had been almost completely infiltrated by, and become subservient to, one of the most feared organisations of the 20th Century, the local equivalent of the KGB.

We catch them, but they let them go. In plain language this translates as "We did our best but someone else is responsible for the failure," and of course it belongs to Boyko Borisov, the current prime minister, at the time when he was a senior policeman in the government of the Simeon II National Movement. 10 years later it is still very much in currency. It pops up every time the police spectacularly "catch" an alleged criminal but fail to provide enough evidence to stand up in court.

States on the verge of financial collapse, a currency with a shaky future, hilarious regulations like the infamous standard for the curvature of cucumbers and sinister trade agreements such as ACTA – the first things that pop into your mind when the EU is mentioned are not the most pleasant thoughts.

In the 22 years since the end of Communism, the Bulgarian army underwent great changes. It was "depoliticised," and from being a staunch Warsaw Pact member became an enthusiastic NATO one. The draft was abolished in 2008 and women were allowed in active service. Bulgarian military missions went to Iraq and Afghanistan, and an American military training site appeared on Bulgarian soil. The number of military personnel was reduced to about 44,000.

When Boyko Borisov came to power in 2009, he promised to review all the expensive energy contracts that bind Bulgaria to Russia. Two years passed. In June 2011 the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Transport issued its long-awaited strategy programme for the development of the energy sector. At the very beginning, the document openly pointed out that energy dependence on Russia is still one of the major issues of the Bulgarian economy. This country imports about 70 percent of its energy needs, mainly from the Russian Federation.