The Big Dreams of Bulgaria's Big Politicians

A battle is raging and a bickering is taking place in the Bulgarian left-wing Socialist party on the backdrop of huge problems with the polar temperatures and deadly floods.

As soon as he left office, after two terms as President, Georgi Parvanov, former leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, started articulating new political ambitions. His chair's seat at the President's office still warm, he began rounds of TV channels and other media to claim back what he has always believed belongs to him – the Party's leadership.

Obviously untouched by the tragic incidents, and the pain of fellow Bulgarians, the one also known by his alias "Gotse" from the time he was agent of the Communist State Security, and as the President who went hunting on another tragic day when 9 Bulgarians burned to death in an obsolete train, (I know I have said this many times, but I will never get tired of repeating it), immediately started talking about the need of change in the left wing and to blame its current leader and former Prime Minister, Sergey Stanishev, for the Socialists being forced into opposition.

Stanishev, also in a number of media appearances, vowed respect for his teacher, but also to not give up the party's helm. Recently elected Chairman of the Party of European Socialists, PES, he points at it nonstop as one of his numerous advantages.

Curiously enough, both talk about reinstating democracy in the country and solve its numerous problems as they have never been in power and always in opposition in the last decade, and in the last 67 years for that matter.

For sure, if Bulgaria's left-wing and ideology have any chance of not only revival, but survival, the change must come from some brand-new, unblemished and non-discredited faces.

In a bout of cheap populism and with hopes to score among voters with hinted desire to not only resurrect as Socialist leader, but become Prime Minister under the model "Putin," Parvanov mentioned several times the great pleasure he experienced from finally being home in his panel apartment in the humble and gloomy Sofia "Krasna Polyana" district, drinking rakiya, eating pickles and watching sports on TV.

Apparently, the two-term President, sitting in high office away from common people, is yet to realize that voters, who find the above appealing, are near extinction, and the span of the dreams of the younger generation and even the middle-aged in Bulgaria goes far beyond a shabby apartment in a remote Sofia neighborhood, a shot of rakiya with salad, and a colored-screen TV.

But, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Little Prince said: "A man is as big as are his dreams..."

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