Comment by Georgi Lozanov:
Lately I feel like in that joke about the husbands who asked a man what time it was and after he answered them that it was three, the husband turned to his wife: What have I been telling you since morning!
I have also been saying for a long time that there is a risk of a second September 9th, but in a "soft" version, since dictatorship is hybridly mixed with democratic practices. Moreover, the threat is both from the outside along the lines of the "Kopeikin" syndrome, and from the inside along the lines of the "Magnitsky" syndrome. Always from power, exercised not by procedure (in the public interest), but by force (in private interest). Of course, the degree of violence (physical, economic, ideological) that the government allows itself matters. The outbursts of "Vazrazhdane", for example, against the European Commission in Sofia failed, but the arrest of the Varna mayor seems to "turned the corner" and raised the level of civil anxiety, so that the term "dictatorship" entered public circulation.
By the way, the risk of exercising power by violence is not a local, but a global problem. In 2022, the journalist from the "Financial Times" published the bestseller "The Age of Autocrats", in which he describes how autocrats in a covert conspiracy against liberal democracy are advancing not only in Asia and Latin America, but even in EU countries and the US after Trump's election. In classical autocracy (in accordance with the etymology of the word - I govern myself) power is concentrated in one leader who decides everything - from the big to the small, without taking into account laws and rights. Today, he may also be in a "conspiratorial" group, standing at the center of networks of dependencies and influences, which brings modern autocracies closer to oligarchy (rule by the few). Unlike in the past, they try to hide their dictatorial nature under the facade of democracies, presenting the rule of the few (one) as the will of the majority. Therefore, autocrats "conditionally" are populists and claim that they do everything "for the people" in order to obtain all the power for themselves in return for sporadic gestures towards them. But the more power is concentrated in the hands of fewer people, the greater the violence necessary to retain it. And from a certain point on, even if they wanted to, they cannot let it go, because if it returns to its procedural forms, they go to prison. That is why Putin, for example, cannot voluntarily end the war before taking over Ukraine and cannot then continue on.
The scars of today's autocracy and Bulgaria
From Rahman's book (published in Bulgarian by "Siela" in 2024), which compares political portraits of eleven more prominent or more timid autocrats, one can deduce the enduring scars of today's autocracy and see how valid they are for Bulgaria. In order of their mandatory nature, they are:
1. Persecution of the opposition (including imprisonment and murders)
2. The loss of the independence of the judiciary
3. Turning the government into a family business or a circle of close associates with tolerance of corruption
4. Controlling the media and spreading fake news, alternative facts and conspiracy theories
5. Fabricating internal and external enemies
6. Discrediting intellectual elites and non-governmental organizations
7. Cult of personality of the leader
8. Using religion for political purposes
The first sign is particularly telling, because by design an obstacle to the acquisition of all power is the existence of an opposition, which must be stopped at all costs if its influence grows, as happened with Alexei Navalny in Russia or Ekrem Imamoglu in Turkey. The PP-DB does not have much influence at the moment, but they are the only opposition in defense of both "red lines" in front of the autocracy, which naturally turned the public support for the arrested PP mayor into a protest against "creeping dictatorship".
The second sign is directly related to the first – in order to stop the opposition, and in general your opponents and competitors, you must be able to use the repressive apparatus of the state for this purpose, which turns it into a "deep state". Blocking in our country the very reform that should guarantee the independence of the judicial system leaves an "aftertaste" of autocracy. The PP-DB demanded the closure of the Anti-Corruption Commission – the latest hero in this protracted saga, because it is he, according to General Atanasov, who acts as a "party body for dealing with the opposition". Delyan Peevski surprisingly supported the proposal, probably realizing that the quickest way to compromise someone is to stand next to them (one still remembers the "greasy coffee" he had with Hristo Ivanov). And, as the poet said on another occasion, one will fall, another will replace him…
Autocrats use their power to generate impressive financial resources with which to maintain, in addition to their personal fortune, networks of dependencies and influence. This can only be done through corruption, which in turn implies "court" oligarchs or "rings of companies", according to Ahmed Dogan's admission. The MRF has probably contributed the most to our enduring reputation for corruption, which in political language is translated with terms such as "oligarchy" and "autocracy".
The control of the media is carried out with economic, political and judicial pressure (the disobedient must not survive) and in its purest form it has been achieved in Russia, where only propaganda with its supports reaches the people – they shape their thinking and turn them into the so-called "deep people". In open societies like ours, such censorship is not possible, but the media (especially without social networks) spread the necessary conspiracy theories, alternative facts, and fake news, so that "the truth simply becomes one of many versions of events", in the words of Rahman.
Journalists and commentators loyal to a government that is exercised with violence become its accomplices, and the media, given a turbine, become violators of the law that does not allow them to "glorify or excuse cruelty or violence". Putin's supporters should be the first to think about this. After them, journalists and commentators who act as PR people, and PR people who pretend to be journalists and commentators.
"The Hot Front" between autocratic regimes
The war in Ukraine is the "hot front" between the autocratic regimes led by the Kremlin and liberal democracy, which they have turned into geopolitical enemy number 1, the end of which is expected to come with Putin's victory. Which side of the front Bulgaria stands on can be seen by its loyalty to the EU. And a domestic political enemy can be anyone who has challenged the status quo in power, for which they must pay not only a political but also a human price. On this occasion, I quoted Coco Azaryan's thought: "Can you imagine what life would be like if you felt the pain you cause".
On local soil, intellectual elites and non-governmental organizations are discredited in a completely Kremlin-style way – They are labeled as "grant-seekers", "Sorosoids", "smart-looking", previously burdened by propaganda with fabricated guilt. They almost declared them "foreign agents", according to Putin's law, periodically introduced by "Vazrazhdane", which did not pass last time, but the next...
There is also a cult of personality in Bulgaria, but it is internal and in individual parties. However, their attempts to bring it to the national level have not stopped.
With the uses of religion, we have not yet brought it to the Russian level, where the Russian Orthodox Church has become a division of state power. But the political curtseys to our church are leading to a point that the higher clergy does not seem to mind at all. This is also one of the reasons for the suspicion towards the introduction of religion as a school subject - lest it be Russophilia.