"The battle for the future" commented on "The Network" on the program "Hristo Botev" Iliyan Vassilev, former diplomat, creator and presenter of the show "The Alternative"
Whose future
"Obviously for the future of our children, our grandchildren, and through this future, the battle is for Europe and the world. Everyone is fighting for their version. If I accept that the model by which we have been governed until now has produced levels of social injustice and isolated a large part of society from a sense of personal responsibility for the choices we make – for deputies, for management, for authorities in general.
What is happening now in Bulgaria, this group of politicians, it is also fighting for its survival and for its future. The problem is that we are one nation and that is the great tragedy. We are divided along all sorts of lines.
Russia-West is a derivative of much deeper lines of division.
For example, the dividing line that is between a group of society that bases its own well-being and that of its children on its own efforts, on labor and the derivative of that labor. Another part of society focuses on redistribution, ie. participation through power and privileged access for themselves and the group around them to public funds through which they build their prosperity.
This results in two groups. I call one of them the primary independent producers who, through their own wealth, allow the state to be more social, more normal. The others who have absolutely no idea to work. For them, all they have to do is get to one of the elevators of power, either through a party or through belonging to some networks.
Between these two worlds the differences are too great. This class of parasites who depend on the public finances because of the way they get to life's fair way of behaving and relating to the rest of the world, they have become too much. The model of not working hard and being a millionaire at 31 without risking anything is too attractive.
Until we solve this thing, obviously we will not move forward, because no matter how rich the country is, it cannot withstand the influx of those willing to distribute pies and step on the shoulders of the public resource. They became too much. This explains the tremors in the DPS and the divisions in the parties, the generations of distributors change and the new ones are more aggressive and more ambitious.
Do you know the wisdom about the grand vizier who gathered all his chief beys to teach them how important it is to have certain proportions and certain relationships in a state. The Vizier had them eat the feasts with such long spoons that no one could eat his feast with his own spoon, but each had to feed his neighbor at the table. These are the balances of integrity and normality in our country that have been disturbed. The levels of selfishness broke everything to the max. For this reason, people isolated themselves, and hence it is very difficult for us to realize together what "national interest" is. "The National Interest" they crucify him as they please and as they please. The president talks about a "national interest", "Revival" for another, the other political parties for a third. But this is not a spontaneous process."
There is no balance of fairness and integrity
"This balance, together with the well-being, was disturbed already in 1989 during the "Lukanov Model", which brought an appointed democracy, an appointed opposition and everything appointed. Thus, the nomenclature was able to reproduce itself. It has reached the point of absurdity, under Borisov's rule, that the levels of corruption have reached levels of their own negation, that is, when we have a growing public resource that you can invest in development, but you cannot do it outside the dominant model that makes it so that the capital programs in the budget are not implemented. They are not implemented because the only way to implement them is through corruption schemes. The problem with these corruption schemes is that when you take a little it does not compromise the ability of the money to achieve its purpose. Now it has reached a situation where a huge part of the resource is confiscated in advance through corruption schemes from people who have nothing to do with the implementation and there is not enough money left for any low-quality implementation options of any projects.
It's everywhere – highways, children's hospitals, everywhere. This scheme is a stamp on everything that happens in public resources. In the big deals, the players are entire parties, entangled in webs in which politicians only take their own without being visible in these webs. Now we come to the absurd – there is more and more money, but they cannot allocate and invest it outside the schemes, and the old schemes no longer work.
We are currently at a crossroads in our development, which way to go.
Peevski offers us a path that builds on the previous model with a higher degree of mimicry. In a sense, he will offer and sell us Atlantism, but with a high tolerable degree of corruption, which will actually empty Atlantism of content and disgust more and more people. The misuse of the word "Atlanticism" from precisely such carriers as Peevski made her unattractive to more and more people. Such carriers as Peevski are synonymous with what is now fashionable in the DPS to be called "derebey".
Such carriers as Peevski are much more aggressive, because in order to be able to distribute more and more to the people in their circle, they will need: autocracy, repression, more and more suppression of the possibility of other parties to balance development and return Bulgaria to the normal course. Something more. Similar examples create a very dangerous direction of erosion of the content and meaning of the entire movement and presence of Bulgaria in the Western security and development systems such as the EU and NATO. Because if Peevski will be the one who will personify European and Atlantic values, imagine what he would do if he stood at the head of the state, watching his self-destruction in DPS. I am afraid that if he succeeds, this pattern of aggressive politics and behavior and quick seizure of power, this pattern always ends in autocracy. We remember how a minister of the interior said that they will not allow the street to change governments. It's chilling. They need violence to maintain their power.
Arguments and base values
"My idea is not that Peevski cannot talk about Atlanticism. The problem is when the face of Atlantism is probably the only one who is an internationally recognized leader of corruption in Bulgaria. When someone affirms this person as admissible in the Bulgarian democracy, a person in a leadership position, which the judicial system does not recognize as a problem, then Bulgaria is born at different speeds, of different truths and different justice. I.e. those rules that apply to everyone else will not apply to Peevski. Corruption is not an abstract concept. It eats the budget and the pocket of every Bulgarian not only through the billions taken. People, when you tell them that someone stole billions, they shout to each other – my, nice, the state is something different from me, because I have alienated myself from the state. Let them steal from her.
The problem is that as a stolen country generates more and more money, they will take more and more resources from it if the model is not changed. Tomorrow they will not only bring money into elections. Because everyone in Bulgaria who relies on fair elections is unable to compete with those who finance the elections through the underground economy. Can anyone believe that the reports that DPS and Peevski give to the Audit Chamber are the real reports of the real money that has been brought in. It is no coincidence that before the last election they came up with the arrest of the head of customs, because she mixed up their cards and put in mortal danger the access to smuggled money. This thing goes on. Just imagine where Bulgaria would be with acceptable levels of corruption, not as they are now. Now a group of politicians are getting richer and richer faster at the expense of all of us who live by the rules. Bulgaria cannot accept both models in one place. Someone has to give way. If Peevski fails with DPS, he will switch to other parties, because that is his model."
Cancel model change
"The scheme of fragmentation and atomization of political representation in the National Assembly is part of this deliberately degrading policy of blocking the possibility for Bulgaria to govern itself and produce development for itself. This is not only a consequence of internal development. This is a conscious action that the Kremlin basically wants from us – to be divided, to be unable to agree. The reason is simple. Neither "Vazrazhdane", nor Borisov's new party "Greatness", nor anyone can provide an alternative to the EU and NATO. But they can block our ability to be an asset in these alliances and as they see ego achieve."
Why do they do it
"The problem is in Borisov's personal projections of GERB leadership. He has a party, but he has not set himself the goal of this party doing something for Bulgaria. His only interest is not to be investigated, not to pay attention to what he has been doing for 15 years. That is, his personal interest over the public one, which GERB can realize as a party in favor of Bulgaria. In this way, the judicial and any other reforms in services that could compromise his personal perspective are stopped. The same with Peevski. He spilled KTB. If only this is caught, he will not be released from prison. That is, the personal agenda of these two people who are at the top of the state is blocking the entire state because they will never allow a development that would put their personal agenda in jeopardy. Why did the rotation fail? Peevski just suddenly did not see himself included in this story and failed it, of course with the consent of Borisov. The human factor - the personal - should not be underestimated. Wars have been fought over this, let alone blocking a country. Especially in our case. Look, we have more people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, services and gendarmerie to guard the government than in the army. The army to protect national security and which was deliberately neglected for years in favor of the Ministry of Interior. So, if we remember what that interior minister said, that they will not let the street change the government, then according to them the citizens are a bigger threat than foreign armies. This is no accident. All regions of Bulgaria are blocked only and only one group of politicians to keep their parameter of influence. and prosperity."
What can change this
"A combination of factors. I do not believe that neither Borisov nor Peevski will change. They did not have this place in this model by accident. What can change the situation are several factors. One is external and they have started to act. For example, it is more difficult to absorb European funds according to the old corruption schemes, and when you do not have access to European funds, you have to turn to the budget funds of Bulgaria. The problem is that the visibility becomes greater and therefore it is more difficult to be in such volumes that they are used to. That's why this internal cannibalism started, because many people are on a branch that is getting shorter and shorter. The second factor is the war in Ukraine. Europe itself is forced to militarize and this inevitably raises defense, military industry and discipline in investment in logistics corridors, etc. Third, many people underestimate that our classic saying "all evil for good" it may work in unexpected ways for them. For example, the arrival of Trump in the USA may force Europe to find itself, and models like those of Peevski Borisov will be very difficult to implement. The model reaches its limits and falls apart anyway. These disintegration processes in DPS will also be reflected in GERB, because Peevski penetrated very deeply into GERB and these persons, supposedly spokespeople for Borisov, are actually more loyal to Peevski. It boils and boils. The one who comes out of the situation with simple messages will win – why corruption and the return of social justice are important, why every person must come out of the lethargy and isolation into which they have been forced."