Assoc. Borislav Tsekov, founder of the Institute for Modern Politics, in an interview for the Audiocast of "Focus“ "This is Bulgaria“
"Between the past that is about to happen and the future that has already been“ – the neon sign for BGN 100,000, placed as an art installation on the site of the mausoleum and causing angry comments on the web, may also have prophetic content. If we compare it with the scandals, incantations and timid hopes of the coalition partners who until recently governed us, we will find that there are coincidences that neither its authors nor its sponsors had in mind, and which may be surprised by the other reading of the message. For example, is assembly 2 about to happen, which both sides have started talking about, but out of godfather shame, so as not to startle their electorates, for now each of them is proposing negotiations without the other's leaders. Such is the past that is about to happen. And the non-stop geyser-like scandals surrounding Kiril Petkov, with constant revelations of further forgeries, go under the column of the future that has already been. Otherwise, no matter how we look at it, the inscription is kitsch for 100,000 BGN and persistently repeats all the ridiculous, but allegedly expensive art creations poured in this area. Why did the election campaign start as a farce? Our guest is associate professor Borislav Tsekov, founder of the Institute for Modern Politics.
This is how I read the kitsch art installation, I also saw your sharp comment on Facebook, but always the line between the tragic and the comic is very thin. What do you think?
It was with great satisfaction that I heard the way in which you ingeniously connected this inscription with the political reality of recent times. Because really, what is happening in the political arena already goes even beyond the border of the tragicomic. This is a pity for our country. Such an abject decline of political morals, such an absence of thought for the state and such an obsession among the main political players and especially among those who came to power with the pretense of a new beginning and big changes, namely “We continue the change" and "Democratic Bulgaria!" Obsession for power, for positions, for state privileges, and in the end, behind all this, we see how gigantic scandals related to corruption, smuggling, fraud, etc. emerge more and more prominently. All this is really very unfortunate for Bulgaria, because the last few years have been completely wasted. Not a single serious national task has been completed or at least moved forward at the required pace. In practice, Bulgaria is not just standing still, but in a number of respects we are witnessing a complete regression. But above all is this corruption of political morals.
I saw with astonishment, albeit belatedly, a recording of a statement by Mr. Kiril Petkov, in which he, like a lowly neighborhood mutt, threatens to beat his political opponent. He says: “He will not dare to tell me this", in this case it is about Mr. Peevski, “He will not dare to tell me this, says Kiril Petkov, alone in the room if his security is outside". It's like we're going back to the 90s, when some boys with thick necks, not particularly intelligent, but powerhouses, solved their neighborhood disputes in this way: who should insure whom, which market stall to hold, who should be accountable to him , this is the level of Kiril Petkov. And he introduces himself, and for a part, albeit a very small part of our public, he is their leader, who was supposed to lead Bulgaria to a bright European future. And he brings us back to the Mutren times, to the times when we were ashamed of what was happening in the state, etc.
Mr. Tsekov, you talk about the degradation of both the leaders and the "We continue the change" movement itself. But if you listen to them, they claim that they are the people who exactly bring the future of Bulgaria and fight against the terrible dark, old forces that maintain and enforce corruption and they cannot break through them?
Look, there is certainly a psychiatric problem in this self-esteem that they give themselves and the way they experience themselves, but it is completely out of step with both the political reality and the real results that their presence in power or around power with strong influence for the past 4 years. Because I say again, they failed the state, they messed up the state in an ugly way, and they did not leave one stone on another. In fact, they had announced themselves - the whole cohort of thinkers and friendly journalists, analysts around them – for the good powers. A few years ago they built around them the false mythology that this is a generational revolution in politics, that this is a generational party and this new generation is coming to make a new beginning and to break with the dark past. We see and are already witnessing the gigantic failure of this political generation, the millennials, the “Z" generation, these are generations that were born after the second half of the 80s and so until 2012.
These are generations – I'm talking about their political spokesmen, those who claimed to express the political will and understandings of this entire generation, namely the PP-DB - they showed a Hunweibin mentality to deny everything that came before them and start a new chronology. And along with this they developed a party sectarianism which reduced them to a minority and which did not allow them to effect any changes. Because in any normal democratic society, large, real, social changes, reforms in various spheres are carried out only by large public majorities, with the support of large segments, majority segments of society. And in order to have this type of public majority, there must also be quality and competent politicians who are capable of conducting political dialogue and constructing such majorities and such consensuses.
The failure of the generation in politics, which is personified by the PP-DB, is precisely that they failed to carry out any reforms, because they failed and had neither the political culture nor the political intelligence to conduct a political dialogue, to seek allies and to build such majorities and consensuses. And no mafia is to blame for them, because the Cosmos gets in the way of shoddy and stupid politicians like those from the PP-DB.
We are inundated with scandals, some more serious than others, but nothing really happens. What fish is anyone planning to catch in this murky water on June 9th?
This scandal, which has been revealed in recent days with the document frauds in the Commercial Register, is very serious, for which the victims, lawyer Lena Borislavova, lawyer Nikola Minchev, and all this in favor of their party leader Kiril Petkov, have been found guilty. These are very serious allegations, very serious facts that are being revealed. It does not matter at all that they are now being revealed in an election campaign, this is a secondary issue that has to do with the infighting and dirty games in the PP-DB and the surrounding NGOs. For us as citizens, for the rule of law, for the integrity of politics, only one thing is important, that the victims come forward and accuse Lena Borislavova, Nikola Minchev and Kiril Petkov of document fraud, quite justifiably. And this is, perhaps not just another, but one of the most spectacular slaps in the face of all those who for 4 years arrogantly lied to the Bulgarian people that this new generation, which the PP-DB represents, were honest, moral, that they wanted to restore the rule of law in Bulgaria.
Will this spectacular scandal with documents falsified by Lena Borislavova, Nikola Minchev and Kiril Petkov lead to specific legal actions, and not just falsified ones, but so that Kiril Petkov can become an acting minister, later minister- chairman, and his deputy to enter the association. Will this have consequences?
As the facts are outlined by the victims, these are typical document frauds related to forging signatures and presenting documents to a state authority by virtue of law. I hope that the law enforcement authorities will finally do their job and move. I understood that there is a pre-trial proceeding on the matter, already if someone was waiting for something or it was just time needed for various types of expertise, this is understandable. But especially now that this scandal is already public, I hope that there will be some movement on these investigations soon. Because otherwise there will be a very heavy suspicion of hiding the tracks. And of course, the arrested persons will be given the opportunity to hide behind parliamentary immunities. In fact, we see that the PP-DB list in these elections – in both European and national ones it is increasingly becoming a refuge for seeking parliamentary immunity against prosecution for smuggling, for document fraud, for corruption, etc. Something that is an extremely worrying trend and must receive its clear and negative public evaluation, so that politics can gradually be cleansed of such persons, such parties, such tendencies.
Nikola Minchev is also the leader of the PP-DB list for the European Parliament, what kind of elections are we going to?
In strange choices. The European Union, through its various institutions, has evaluated the corruption practices in Bulgaria more than once. And now, suddenly, a party that until a few days ago was literally in power, Mr. Minchev is not only a representative, although he was briefly the chairman of the National Assembly, found himself in the street, not in words, but with specific facts and circumstances for a serious crime. If he has any morals, he should withdraw from the campaign until his name is cleared, not hide behind parliamentary immunity. The same applies to Kiril Petkov and Lena Borislavova.
The scandal surrounding the forgery of signatures for the association “To protect Coral" opens the curtain not only to the appetites of power, but also to the hypocrisy of environmental associations. Does the interference of the name of the Pasha, who is known to have interests on the Black Sea, not shift the optics in another direction as well?
Look, behind all this PP-DB political structure that was created, faces that are part of the semi-shadowy and shadowy side of politics are visible and visible to the naked eye. We remember what the murdered crime boss Curro said that these were his people PP-DB, we remember Alexey Petrov, now we hear about Pascal, etc. And here, in this case, there are also such claims, how certain parts of them were defended by the Pasha in question, who has a controversial reputation in the public space, as being connected to power groups since the beginning of the transition. So these PP-DB people actually turn out to be very far from this false image that they tried to build and with which they deceived many voters, they turn out to be entangled in oligarchic, criminal, semi-criminal networks, stretching an apparently political umbrella over them.< /p>
You see what is happening with this smuggling scandal: a former PP-DB interior minister from the caretaker governments, a PP-DB MP Boyko Rashkov, their general secretary Zhivko Kotsev, what kind of political umbrella did they try to spread over occasion of the revelations about links to smuggling. When was it heard that a prime minister, in this case Mr. Denkov, still prime minister at the time, gave an extraordinary press conference in defense of a chief secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, who was involved in criminal prosecution. If this is not a political umbrella, I don't know what else it can be called. And these people have the cynicism to continue to go out and lie in the media, throw dust in people's eyes, use the propaganda machine that serves them to censor, hide and manipulate information. So we see, nothing can remain hidden. And I think this is just the beginning. Too many scandals and corruption processes took place under the political umbrella of PP-DB to remain hidden for a long time.
The “Coral" scandal doesn't it very conveniently displace the scandals “Customs" and “Zivko Kotsev"? Suddenly they stopped being talked about, but now we're all talking about “Coral"?
This is the scandal of the day, tomorrow there will be another. I hope, however, that these scandals from the point of view of judicial and investigative bodies will not at all have the momentary fame that they receive in the public space. And they will be dealt with with all the rigor of the law and the guilty parties will get what they deserve, in the end. Because otherwise, if we see these same persons who are involved in all these big scandals, again in power, let Kiril Petkov claim me for ministries, let Nikola Minchev claim me for MEP and Speaker of the Parliament or Lena Borislavova for morality in politics and for honest governance, I think that is already an oxymoron. And these people should get what they deserve.
Nothing followed after the murder of Martin Bojanov-Notary, the customs affair and suspicions about the chief secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as an accomplice of smugglers are about to die down. We can assume that this will be the fate of the "Coral" scandal. They go by as “Every miracle in three days". Why does everything explode, then gradually die down, and what are these processes about?
The judiciary, the investigation, the prosecutor's office, and ultimately the court are in motion. It is up to them what is otherwise characteristic of the public space to have such momentary fireworks, then they go into oblivion until the next scandal. But it depends on the judiciary whether these scandals will be hidden. By the way, it is no coincidence that all these scandals and investigations, in the cases we are talking about, actively involved prominent political figures from the PP-DB. And this explains to a certain extent this hysterical insistence with which they sought by all means to install their own chief prosecutor, to install their own chiefs of special services, their own interior minister, their own chief secretary.
Obviously, in order to control the law enforcement and justice system in their private interest, in view of the interests of the political and economic circles behind the PP-DB. There is no judicial reform, there is a desire to use the judicial and law enforcement system as a political umbrella for the PP-DB and as a club against the political opponents of the PP-DB. This expresses their clumsy idea of judicial reform, with which they even slapped the Constitution.
Why did the election campaign start as a farce?
Well, because such is the quality of the campaign headquarters that think about these campaigns. We see a complete lack of ideas, we see an absence of thought and vision for the future of the country. Recently, an ambassador of an important European country shared with me that during the meetings with the diplomatic corps held by Mr. Kiril Petkov, Denkov, then Mr. Borisov, an impression was created in the diplomatic corps that the Bulgarian politicians had no idea what what should be happening with the country, what is the strategy, what are the big issues that need to be solved. They are mired in pettiness and interpersonal relationships. This is a very sad statement, but very true at the same time.
And what will happen after June 9th?
I hope that this time, however the political forces are positioned as a result of the election, a broad-based coalition government based on a public and transparent coalition agreement, with accountability and with a clear coalition decision-making mechanism. Moreover, I hope that there will be no assemblies, because the assembly has become a symbol of the usurpation of power by a political minority, a symbol of managerial ignorance, incompetence, and we are already seeing the corruption and smuggling scandals that marked the collapse of this administration. Such a formula, which has been operating for 9 months in Bulgaria, should no longer be allowed if we do not want to face the country with a national catastrophe.
Mr. Tsekov, you are talking about broad-based management. Who will be the parties, who will be the coalitions that will enter this foundation, after Mr. Borisov has already talked about a new rotation, that is, the old rotation should continue?
I am skeptical of the speeches of politicians now, in the conditions of a campaign. They will try to leave all doors open, since apparently the voters in recent years have not given a clear mandate for the management of a political force, but I hope that Mr. Borisov in this case has learned his lessons from everything that happened happened. Because without a clear request with whom it can and with whom it cannot, the efforts, in the case of GERB to show a significantly better result in the elections, are largely doomed. Because in the end, the so-called “soft fringes", for example GERB, once they know that no matter how much they vote for GERB, it will bring Kirillpetkovites and all this menagerie back into power, and vice versa, those who are more hesitant PP-DB voters, knowing that even if they vote for PP-DB, this means governing with GERB and DPS again.
The lack of a clear request cripples the opportunities in the case of GERB as a leading political force, if not to achieve, at least to get as close as possible to an independent majority. So if there are strategically minded people there, they should make a clear request for self-governance or at the very least for taking power out of the PP-DB and for a 4-year mandate. But these are, of course, hypotheticals on my part. We see the reality of the political terrain for what it is: there is a fear of taking responsibility. And the only thing, I emphasize again, we can hope for is that this time there will be no behind-the-scenes assemblies that will be managed by text messages whispering to the booths, but there will be a coalition of parties that will conduct a clear Euro-Atlantic course of Bulgaria and together with this the participation of discredited political forces such as PP-DB will be minimized.