In Bulgarian political life there is a phenomenon that is difficult to explain logically, but is extremely fruitful in terms of humor and absurdity. It is about an inexplicable, almost masochistic attraction of the representatives of the so-called. “yellow cobblestone community“ to figures who, by definition, originally embody everything that this community supposedly fights against.
The most striking, downright grotesque example of this inclusion was the embrace between PP-DB and Boyko Rashkov. The man, whose biography and career are deeply rooted in the structures of the past, suddenly woke up as a “flag of change“ and a leading fighter against corruption. The same Rashkov, who with all his forceful pathos misled the coalition leaders to carry out that sensational, illegal and ultimately absolutely impotent political arrest of Boyko Borisov, which only legitimized and restarted the GERB leader. Instead of political isolation for Rashkov, the urban right turned him into its regular MP and tribune.
But the absurdity does not stop there. The personnel incubator of this community continues to give birth to nominations of figures who look like they jumped out of a socialist joke about senior women. People whose mentality, expression and vision have nothing to do with the modern, European and pro-Western Bulgaria that their voters dream of.
This discrepancy between the claim to “European chic“ and the reality of “socialist aesthetics“ reveals a deep crisis of values in the reformist space. When, in the name of power and short-term pragmatism, you recognize the people from the transition apparatus as your own, you don't just compromise - you replace the authentic alternative with yet another surrogate. And then you bitterly wonder why the voters are thinning out, and "change" increasingly looks like a well-forgotten old joke.