Comment by Veselin Stoynev:
Bulgarian political life today is an endless fiesta of Balkan magical realism. The party owls are exactly what they want to appear to be, but they are completely consistent in building a realistic illusion. If in the previous episode the leader of the largest party Boyko Borisov claimed that GERB is only a crutch for its coalition partners BSP and ITN, now he goes even further – It was Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov's job, not his, to secure a majority after it fell to the sanitary minimum.
After the bully-killer Delyan Peevski first wanted elections, and then started supporting the government, he finally announced that GERB had nowhere to go without him. A terrible drama of love and stubbornness, in which one side pulls all the way - for the sake of the people, and the other pushes all the way - again for the sake of the people. Because the dishonored beauty is not charming, and the hero is an impostor if he doesn't have a scapegoat that he can subdue in front of everyone.
A detour in July after the decision on the eurozone
Borisov "shortened" the minimum life of the cabinet by half a year - it is no longer until our possible entry into the eurozone on January 1, but until the European decision on this in the middle of this year. Peevski, on the other hand, set a deadline for the government to be righteous – as long as it worked for the people, it would live, and stop working for them – in elections. Of course, he himself is the auditor of the people's welfare and the master of the administrative burdens.
So we now have an allegedly increasingly undesirable, but increasingly large, governing coalition, which is already in the 3+1+1 format (GERB-BSP-ITN, plus DPS-Dogan, plus DPS-Peevski). A coalition in which Borisov has finally buried all his body parts in the sand out of shame, and Peevski has exposed all his bodies without shame. And for which the eurozone is no longer a blessing for a crusade, but a rest stop, at which to decide whether it is even worth going to the Holy Sepulcher. On this cunning detour, both the positive and negative decisions for the eurozone give two options.
What are the options?
If by July we get the green light for the introduction of the euro next year, the coalition can say - we have done our job, let's go to elections now, it was unbearably difficult for us together. But it could also be the opposite - here we are achieving successes, let's consolidate them, look how complicated it is in the world and in the Balkans, we need stability, no elections.
If we get a negative answer, which seems less likely even just because of the Christian mercy owed to sinful but desired brothers in difficult geopolitical times, then this could be an occasion for elections with a furious transfer of blame - within the coalition to each other, but mostly to the opposition, and the opposition - to
the ruling party for the European failure. And vice versa - This may be a reason for the coalition to continue governing for some time with the excuse that, in times of trouble, the cart is not left in the middle of a quagmire of domestic political and planetary disarray.
Maneuvers in and around the coalition
In any case, setting a shorter deadline for reviewing the fate of the government provides tactical benefits for maneuvering. People will think more nervously about their good - some will wait for it, others will lose it. GERB will be able to wink more playfully at the Euro-Atlantic opposition, especially in its DB part, because the PP has both self-excommunicated and anathemaed to any involvement in the government. MPS-New Beginning will increasingly press the power button with a greasy finger, threatening to turn off the power switch. And as summer approaches, accusations, justifications, flirtations and threats will swirl more and more, hoping to bring about a resolution to the political crisis, which has been on and off for four years.
But there will hardly be a resolution with possible new elections in the fall. On the contrary, if they are held under the current Electoral Code, the crisis may even deepen further. If there is still a change in the electoral rules, the very attitude, whatever the changes, will show whether a way out to cleaner air is being sought at all.
Real politics with clear compromises and without dependencies
And then real political content must be found, beyond magical mimancy. Returning to orthodox politics – with real partnerships and compromises without dependencies, with real coalitions, drawing clear dividing lines and building slightly stronger bridges between right and left, and God forbid, between East and West.
The road to the promised land of real politics may not last 40 years, even though the past 4 already feel like 40. The question is - in this exhausting journey through the desert, the magical oases should not become the only political reality.