Comment by Evgeniy Dainov:
In recent days, several boundaries have been crossed that can be interpreted as a demonstration of the danger that hangs over Bulgaria. The individual cases may seem unrelated, but they point in the same direction.
Politicians with claims to be winners in the elections have introduced the open, easily verifiable lie as a common way of speaking. The former Varna mayor Portnikh was not indicted by the European Public Prosecutor's Office. Checking that he was and is takes less than three seconds. And yet this lie was circulating in the media.
Meanwhile, in Varna - which seems to be increasingly behaving like the Varna People's Republic despite the dominance of the PP-DB in local government - the police and prosecutor's office are summoning people who bought a movie ticket. And on a national scale, all law enforcement agencies, led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, categorically refuse to check the buying of votes for the "boy", although it is already said that 200,000 such votes have been bought at the moment.
The purpose of the events
The purpose of these events is obvious. Where there is no truth, no one can resist force. It, force, becomes the only regulator of public beliefs. Where law enforcement agencies visibly, publicly and with great pleasure refuse to comply with the law - there force becomes the regulator of all public relations. When the Court of Appeals publicly declares that it does not recognize the Constitution (in the case of the detention of Jeyhan Ibryamov), this is a signal that the court is no longer a barrier to the arbitrariness of the authorities. And when police officers and prosecutors accustom viewers to a film - this is a signal that the impending rule of force will be comprehensive, cruel and completely ruthless.
When all power is given to Delyan Peevski - and the entire state apparatus seems to be preparing to give it to him, no one will be sure of anything anymore and therefore anyone, at any moment, can be arrested. An example is again Jeyhan Ibryamov. We will never know whether he did anything illegal. If, when the case begins, the judge throws it out as inadmissible - as he should do due to the violations of the law in the pre-trial phase, we will not understand where Ibryamov sinned. If the judge admits the case, we will still not know this, since in this case the judge will have revealed himself as a servant of the "phenomenon", and not an officer of the law. And we will know that he will judge not according to evidence, but according to orders over the phone.
In this chaos, Peevski will only need to inject a little panic to become a full-fledged autocrat. This can be achieved with the public arrest of a hundred prominent democratic figures. And right now, both the detention of Ibryamov and the pressure on moviegoers in Varna are being rehearsed. Such arrests will trigger fear among Bulgarians, and they, as we know, are cowards by nature. If we add to this picture some repression of famous journalists, such as is currently being rehearsed on Maria Tsantsarova, then the autocracy could become fully-fledged even before Christmas.
The way out
I'm exaggerating, you might say, it won't go that far. I just want to remind you with what ease within 24 hours the governments of Georgia and North Macedonia slammed the door to Europe. Such failures can happen suddenly and with careless ease. And also: look carefully at Peevski. Listen to him. And ask yourself: who will he take revenge on when, although he has all the power in Bulgaria, neither the Americans nor the British will lift the sanctions they have imposed on him? He will probably take revenge on those who are closest to him - the Bulgarians.
The situation has never been more dangerous. But the way out of the crisis has never been easier: voting against the danger of Delyan Slavchev Peevski's autocracy. And, of course - not much, just a little, a tiny bit of that courage that was characteristic of the generations of Rakovski and Levski.
Fear today is the easiest way to end up behind bars tomorrow.