Veselin Stoynev's comment:
"Save Sofia" left the ruling coalition in the Sofia Municipal Council (SOC) and declared itself a constructive opposition. The ruling party did not have a majority with them, but without Boris Bonev's eight municipal councilors, the ruling minority is melting even more and PP-DB is left with 14 people in SOC, on a par with the unconstructive opposition GERB.
"Save Sofia" actually admits that it is an opposition mainly to the Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev, from whom it has withdrawn its trust. Boris Bonev's criticisms are convincing, that Terziev is not doing anything, that what he is doing at all is very little and is happening too slowly, that in the end it is "more of the same" of Yordanka Fandakova. As well as that the lack of energy, the inability for leadership and the failure to adhere to a management program will return GERB on a white horse to the capital's government in the next elections.
Not technocratic, but sociopathic
Indeed, when you occupy one of the most political positions in the country, with the highest legitimacy after that of the president, because it was obtained through direct democratic elections, it is unacceptable to be politically inconspicuous. Even less so, to be absent from any political communication - inwardly, to the parties behind you, and outwardly, to the citizens in front of you.
The fact that you have difficulty governing without a majority in the local parliament behind you is no excuse, because you have to create it yourself or learn to work with floating majorities. This is how dozens of mayors in the country work, because they have no other choice - unlike the parliament, which can be dissolved, local parliaments run an entire term without an early vote.
Attempts to compensate for or present the lack of politics as team governance by personally elected cadres are doomed to failure, because such is impossible without political support and without political responsibility. Not when such governance cannot be legitimized with quick and visible results. That is why, for a year and a half, Terziev's approach in the Sofia Municipality does not even seem technocratic, but rather sociopathic.
Terziev is not the only one to blame
However, the problems of the mayoral administration are far from being due only to the mayor. All three formations that nominated him bear the main responsibility for not securing a majority. It does not seem that they encouraged and assisted the mayor to do so, even if we assume that they were desperate because of his weak political capabilities, in addition to his biographical burdens, which burdened him even during the election campaign. It does not seem that most of the party headquarters in the coalition that won the elections have systematically and firmly stood behind their political representations in the SOS, leaving their municipal councilors to fend for themselves and intervening mainly in times of crisis.
However, achieving quick and lasting anti-corruption results in the Sofia Municipality is difficult to achieve, even with sanitary guarantees of corruption impenetrability of one's own staff and good coalition interaction. Because it is about dismantling quasi-political corruption models with powerful capabilities and well-established practices over decades. The current ruling coalition has long been talking about an economic majority in the SOS and about networks of Orlin Alexiev, Krasyo Cherniya and Taki. And in the absence of a decently independent judicial system, only through concentrated political will and competence both in the municipal council and in the city hall can the ruling parties achieve relatively lasting success within their mandate.
Who will be the next mayor?
The problem with the PP-DB-SS government in Sofia is that if Mayor Terziev completes his term in the same way and if the party sabotage against him continues, GERB will return to power. Many of the opponents of "Save Sofia" in the democratic community see its exit from the coalition as a positioning of Boris Bonev for mayor. Before the mayoral elections, however, there are presidential and possibly early parliamentary elections, in which the democratic community will have to prove its unity and strength. Unless Vasil Terziev's mandate is terminated early. In February, the case for its cancellation was returned to the first instance by the Supreme Administrative Court. According to Bonev and his colleagues from the PP and DB, it is controlled by Delyan Peevski through Georgi Cholakov, who continues to govern after the end of his mandate.
Whenever the mayoral elections are held, however, Bonev cannot count on success without the party support of his former coalition partners and their loyal voters. The People's Party and "Yes, Bulgaria" - the former more strongly, the latter more reservedly - have already announced that they support Mayor Terziev. This is understandable, because they bear responsibility for his successes and failures since his election. "Save Sofia" has yet to prove how it can bear responsibility in any other way, if it truly proves itself as a constructive opposition and shakes up the clumsy and ineffective government. This will also be a springboard for Bonev to establish himself as an alternative leader of the capital's democratic community, who can hardly be ignored by potential coalition partners in the next elections.
A split or a chance for the community not to eat itself
In fact, with the entry of "Save Sofia" into opposition, a chance opens up for the management of the democratic community in Sofia. If the elevation of Terziev was a mistake, the positive result is that everyone is now pressed tightly against the wall of political responsibility. Terziev, Bonev, PP and DB can no longer shift the blame to their voters and each in their own way must bear responsibility and therefore they will have to tighten their grip if they do not want to end up with all the blame on them. With the collapse of the governing coalition in Sofia, nothing different is happening than the de facto collapse of the parliamentary coalition PP-DB, which only formally remains intact.
The history of democratic political representation since the beginning of the 1990s has been an endless series of unifications and splits. And this discord is not only due to the representation, the represented are also discordant. Therefore, one can also look positively at the latest state of semi-disintegration - with its main figures showing their affiliation to it in the form of constructive opposition. This may be a chance for it not to start eating itself up again, but to eventually lead to transformations within itself in order to keep alive its claim to represent diverse groups of civically engaged people.
This time, another crisis of political and managerial potency can be overcome without tearing shirts and cursing and without starting again from scratch, with new parties and completely new faces who have yet to overcome the self-perception that the world begins with them.