Veselin Stoynev's comment:
With the transport blockade of Sofia, Boyko Borisov did the same as Rumen Radev with the referendum on the euro - he exposed himself and got stuck in a strategic quagmire. Just as the president cut off his prospects of becoming a serious political alternative by initiating an unconstitutional referendum at 12:5, which he himself rejected the day before yesterday, so the GERB leader proved that he incites a protest, which he then ends himself, because he failed to rub the noses of Sofia residents that they did not elect his candidate for mayor. And if the president has almost lost his power to be a unifier against the status quo, Borisov managed to turn the citizens - and not only in the capital - against himself and turn the overbearing mayor Vasil Terziev into a political leader.
The economic majority in the Sofia Municipal Council coincides with the governing majority in the country
The organization of a transport blockade, led by municipal councilors from GERB and BSP, proved to even non-believers that the so-called economic majority in the Sofia Municipal Council is an irrefutable scientific truth. On the sixth day of the pseudo-union blockade arbitrariness, disguised as civil disobedience, to convene on “neutral territory” at the GERB headquarters the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the coalition partners in the municipal council, to throw in some 15 million and announce the end of the protest, is a complete admission that the economic majority in Sofia is equal to the governing majority in the country.
A caricatured detail is, for example, that Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova had to fulfill the order for the 15 million just days after firmly declaring that the state would not give money and that the municipality would have to make do with some virtual transitional leftovers in its budget. And that almost the same amount - 14 million leva, was denied to the protesters at the same time by the public media - BNT, BNR and BTA.
The transport blockade fosters civil solidarity
The transport blockade of Sofia, in addition to clarifying who is instigating it, also fosters civil solidarity. Sofia residents initially did not get angry, but showed understanding for the demands of those working in the capital's transport. Then they began to share trips with their cars, and some even paid large sums for taxi transportation for the sick and other people in need. As the matriculation exams approached, they began to worry en masse. And with Borisov's malicious statement that they would have to suffer the change, they became angry. Several thousand people gathered on Monday afternoon towards the end of the working day in front of the municipality to stand behind their mayor, although many have mixed feelings about his management and communication skills and a long-standing dislike for his pedigree.
Borisov and his associates consolidated the “punished“
During the six days of the blockade, thousands of Sofia residents saw in Vasil Terziev not only a defender of their own cause, that Sofia should be governed without corruption and solely in the public interest, but also a determined mayor. Calls “together” were chanted from a megaphone, aimed at uniting a community of people with similar values and interests, but also at its divided representatives in the person of the PP, DB and “Save Sofia”. Thus, instead of the desired disunity, Borisov and his associates have consolidated those who should have been punished and turned into a political leader a person who had not previously demonstrated such qualities. Just as happened with the removal of Nikola Minchev from the post of speaker of the parliament a few years ago - when a fresh politician who enjoyed only sympathy, but turned into a victim, suddenly rises to a leadership pedestal, so that even the official party leaders begin to fear his competition and finally send him to Brussels.
Early elections in Sofia are now unthinkable
Terziev received such public legitimacy after Borisov's transport auto-da-fe that at the very least, any possible attempts to remove him in court or to completely discredit him now seem impossible without leading to very serious civil-political opposition. The strategic opportunity to provoke partial local elections for mayor of Sofia, which the ruling parties in the country, GERB, BSP, ITN and DPS-New Beginning, present to the people as an outlet, seems completely wasted, so that after the announcement of the decision or after Bulgaria's entry into the eurozone, they can say - there will be no national elections, but here are local elections in Sofia, semi-national ones, with which we can finally rehabilitate ourselves in order to continue governing. This option is no longer realistic, because both the parties that nominated the mayor, but are not happy with his performance, and the citizens who elected him with mixed feelings, are already firmly tied to him until the end of his term. Because the question is no longer how good Terziev is, but “us or them“.
The recharged Terziev must grow politically
With this recharge, Terziev gets a serious chance to start getting much better at it. And to grow not only as an administrator, but also as a politician. Despite his technocratic profile, he is now obliged to behave much more politically in order to respond to the civic capital reinvestment and win serious battles on the capital's terrain.
The mayor must become a key political factor in order to be able to break the economic majority in the SOS and create majorities on important issues, organizing public support behind him. He must present strategic solutions for the management of a number of systems in the municipality and achieve visible victories and results. And for starters, while the problems in Sofia are still at the center of national focus, a sustainable solution for transportation may also be required, so that in a year and a half or so, a similar crisis does not occur, regardless of whether it will be politically fueled again.