The most obvious finding about the pre-election situation in our country is that the parties are tired. We talk about voter fatigue, but we seem to miss the parties' fatigue. The parties are tired, the party assets are tired, the party PRs are tired - the lack of ideas and weakness of the campaign is evident. In the first ten days of the campaign, there is a lack of activity and quality ideas, there is a distinct lack of freshness. There is no understanding among the major parties that they have to offer a new reading of this situation, they seem lethargic, apathetic and unwillingly waiting for this campaign to pass and to see another result that everyone will not be particularly happy with.
This is what he said about the program “Bulgaria, Europe and the world in focus" of Radio “Focus", the co-owner of “Gallup International Balkan" Petar Kichashki.
According to him, there is absolutely no indication that elections will be held in Bulgaria. "1000 people in Bulgaria who are intensely interested in politics know it, for the rest of the audience there is no way to understand that there is a campaign, except for the presence of billboards around the country and posters.
The reason for this is that the moment it became clear that we were heading for the 7th early parliamentary elections in a row, the parties started campaigning. There is also the pernicious but growing element of party tribalism. Parties see themselves as tribes that are not designed to seek dialogue and agreement to form state governance.
They see themselves as subjects to whom it has been revealed from above that they are the messiahs who must save Bulgaria. This is profoundly false, a wrong approach, and one of the reasons we are in this crisis is because there is no normal political dialogue. The parties draw red lines between themselves, based on persons and personalities - with this one you can't, with that one you can. And not based on policies and value understandings on the path the state should follow. This is one of the main reasons why we are in this crisis, which has been going on for 4 years now, one standard mandate of the government, we brought it into a severe crisis and division", explained Petar Kichashki.
The controversy surrounding the future prime minister is broken by each party through its own interest. “It is dangerous to follow the line of this mythical equidistant prime minister, we have already played it. GERB proposed such an expert established in his field as Prof. Gabrovski, who did not receive any support and subsequently disappeared from the political space. This type of policy cannot work in Bulgaria. The example with Mario Draghi, which PP-DB gives, is unsuccessful, due to two circumstances. Italy is a huge country, it has a large human resource, and we are just over 6 million people. It is strange where we will find this person who is both active and equally distant from all parties.
Such a figure, if it existed, would have already been shown. There is no way, in the conditions of our country, to pull out of our sleeve a mythical figure who will come and solve all the problems of the country. The second circumstance with which the comparison with Draghi is unfortunate is at the level of the political culture of the Italian people and the political culture of the Italian parties. There understanding of politics is not a politics that hides behind a non-partisan candidate, but a politics that seeks to project a unifying figure. We do not have such figures, but this is an attempt by the parties to hide behind such a figure rather than take responsibility for the governance that such figure will offer. This is a remake of the Berov government, we remember this period of government as the Berovization of the state, when the Mutren groups broke out. We had a prime minister to understand that Bulgaria can do without a prime minister. This is a recipe that will deepen the crisis, it will not solve it," stressed Petar Kichashki.
According to the expert in the campaign, there are no messages and campaign activities, the echo of silence is heard. "Political parties are anxiously waiting for this campaign to pass. More or less as he distributed them in the previous 6 elections. No one on the ground is doing any active campaigning. Regarding GERD, there is activation. The leader Borisov travels around the country, holds pre-election meetings from Silistra to Sofia, figuratively speaking he is present. GERB are trying to build the image of a winning party, the party destined to wear the cloak of a winner. But they are aware that victory is such that it does not imply self-government. A victory which implies that they will have the heavy responsibility of forming a government, but it is not a victory which will guarantee them the rule. They are in a disadvantageous position, on the one hand, to be the ones to initiate the conversation about a government, and they cannot afford to miss the moment and not have a government now. It seems to me that PP-DB is better placed to win the second place, they have an electoral reserve, a base that could serve as a springboard for their growth. “Revival" has reached its electoral ceiling, there is no reserve, this niche of Russophile voters is narrow, and many formations are fighting for it. Rather, they have nowhere to grow until they expand their messages, and in the first ten days of the campaign, they don't seem to understand the need for such expansion," concluded Petar Kichashki.