We have become a world example of what democracy looks like. I received calls from all over the world with congratulations to the free people from the protest - all of you. Fears for the future should not darken the pleasure of the fact that free Bulgarians turned out to be many, strong and together. This was written on his Facebook profile by the former co-chair of Continuing the Change and former Prime Minister of the country Kiril Petkov.
Here is Petkov's entire post without editorial intervention:
And instead of being afraid of what will happen as the next step, let's use the lessons we have learned so far.
We know that permanent power does not lie in the government and we have not done anything there yet: the prosecutor's office, services, regulators, administration, media (some of them). Without finishing our work there - we will only have hurt the Peevski model, but we will not have really eliminated it.
The only way to change the above is to have 121+ MPs in the next parliament who want real change. We have not had this in the last governments so far. When I was Prime Minister, ITN was the hidden hand of the Peevski model, who came up with the false argument about Macedonia and brought down our government after only 7 months. In Denkov's government, we also had no chance for real change, but we still succeeded with Schengen and the Eurozone. We have already achieved the memberships that have positioned us in the heart of Europe: the EU, NATO, Schengen, the Eurozone. Now the only progress from here on out is to clean our own house of the local mafia cops, and for that we need 121+. There will also be very easy litmus tests, for example - if we can't remove the head of DANS, who is Peevski's, there is no point in entering any government. 121+!
We have already learned the lessons that until we have a majority, we cannot change Bulgaria through changing laws. Yes, it would be great for us to have machine voting alone again, but the truth is that although it is very logical, this majority will never accept it, because it will reduce abuses - and they need them. We also cannot count on the Ministry of Interior to protect us from the bought vote, while this leadership is like a maid of the Peevski model. We cannot count on the prosecutor's office to convict the vote dealers, after Sarafov himself breaks the law by remaining an illegal prosecutor general. And here comes the task - how to have free elections and a result of 121+, if we do not have the right legislation, we do not have a working Ministry of Interior under the current leadership and we do not have a prosecutor's office to investigate election crimes.
The answer lies in the protest itself. Imagine - out of 200,000 protesters, if even only 20,000 become guarantors of fair elections. They become observers at the polling stations, but not like the ones we have now, but truly motivated observers, ready to fight against any abuse. Ready to film every vote dealer with their phones. Ready to make a citizen's arrest of every criminal with vote-buying packages. We have already seen this working in Pazardzhik, now we all need to roll up our sleeves and do it across the country. The PPDB will soon launch a training and coordination organization. Stay tuned and join in, because 20,000 free observers can be more powerful than the entire Ministry of Interior in the field. I know we can!
So friends, there is a plan, and this plan does not depend on a savior, on unrealistic expectations for legislation or a working Ministry of Interior and the Prosecutor's Office. This plan depends on all of us to roll up our sleeves and finish the job. We did it for the protest, we can do it for the elections, and we will do it in the next parliament, where the mafia - regardless of party titles - should have less than 120 deputies. And if they accidentally start buying deputies, this protest of 200,000 people should not become a one-time wave, but a regular way of civil control. So every sold-out MP will know that this wave will overwhelm him.
The protest showed us the way, now we must walk it together! Thank you, free Bulgarians!