What Kind of Restroom Is Bulgarian Politics? Or a Return to 'Normalcy'

"What is it, Maslarova? (Bulgaria's former Labor Minister – editor's note) What? You are chewing and trying to tell me something! I don't get it! You are chewing a gum! I want to tell our colleagues from the Socialist Party – we came here to debate the Europe 2020 strategy, and the moment I left the plenary hall for a while, all of them were gone! Don't you care what the other MPs think? Or you just want me to come here for a debate so that you can make speeches on TV and then go to the parliament cafe? You disappear the moment I leave. You did that during the budget debates, and again today. And your colleagues from the DPS party have to stay and blush (i.e. a word play in Bulgarian meaning also "to become red" – the color of the Socialists - editor's note) instead of you!"

This tirade was pronounced by Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov before the MPs on Sept 2, the second day of the fall season of the Bulgarian Parliament.

In his totally unique style, Borisov scolded the Socialist Party MPs for leaving the plenary hall as soon as he took a few minutes to go to the restroom.

The real importance of the above quote, however, does not have to do with its substance – i.e. whether Borisov's ruling party GERB is good, and the opposition Socialists and the ethnic Turkish DPS are the bad guys – or the other way around. Rather, it serves to demonstrate the form and framework of Bulgarian political life, and the functioning of the much celebrated Bulgarian Western-style liberal democracy.

As the past year – August 2009-August 2010 – was the first year of the Borisov Cabinet after the July 2009 parliamentary elections, and as such was characterized by much turmoil including predictions that the minority government, which rules in a somewhat weird informal coalition, will collapse in just a few months – the start of the second year of the current Cabinet and Parliament promises "a return to normalcy" or "business as usual" in Bulgarian politics. That is, a continuation of a political framework that is dissatisfying to the people but is stable and oftentimes becomes unnoticeable. In that respect, the newly emerged "going to the restroom" metaphor of Bulgarian politics is coming in very handy.

The good news is that since 1997 – which is probably at least as important a year for Bulgaria in terms of political changes as was 1989 – Bulgaria has had three governments which served their full terms, and a fourth one is on the way (even though, there is indeed a long way to go).

Despite the fact that early elections and other political "earthquakes" within the limits of liberal democracy are not a bad thing per se, the full-term governments of the recent years have brought a new and unusual feeling for most Bulgarians. Namely, that politics is out there but that it can be largely unnoticeable. It can be just like going to a nice private restroom – one of those not so unpleasant things that one does but does not have to think of that often. This is a qualitatively new status quo compared with the highly politicized and tumultuous 1990s.

The bad news, however, is that the new government, which is no longer that new, has gotten right into the course of Bulgarian political life from the past few years rather than making any substantial revolutionary changes – as many had hoped. In that sense, Bulgarian politics appears to remain, well, the same kind of dirty place and unpleasant place; the same kind of a squalid public toilet.

The start of the new political season will bring more of the "Bulgarian democracy since 1997", i.e. little meaningful debate and little constructive criticism, little will to achieve real consensus about really important national priorities, little actual dialogue, little care on part of the ruling party about what the opposition thinks, and lots and lots of bickering motivated by backstage business and power interests masked as fake but passionate ideological positions.

Not to forget the really poor intra-party life where Bulgarian political parties – with no exceptions – are more like corruption cliques and military juntas rather than well-oiled democratic machines based on quality, debate, and competence.

One would immediately retort that is the picture in every single liberal democracy. Just as the clich? quote by Winston Churchill goes about the best argument against democracy – "a five-minute talk with the average voter."

Such a critic would be right. The flaws of the Bulgarian liberal democracy are not that different in principle from those of the typical Western democracy (this I already described above as goods news). The real problem in the Bulgarian case is the scope of these flaws – they are just much deeper and much more unabated and untamed than, say, in a nice stereotypically democratic country such as Denmark.

Sure, Bulgaria's ruling party GERB is still too young and a work in progress. Yet, it has already demonstrated much of the flaws of the older political parties – with about half a dozen major scandals in a few months, in which some of its MPs have been suspected of being involved in projects and practices designed to benefit them rather than the help nation. Those have been described as "lobbyist scandals" in the Bulgarian media but they seem to be more than that – they border outright corruption and abuse.

The glue holding the GERB front together remains Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. As his creation, the GERB party, does not seem to be very stable with respect to ensuring that nobody with dishonest intentions slipped into its ranks, Borisov has remained the only bulwark against several draft bills and other initiatives, which came close to being passed, and which would clearly be detrimental to the Bulgarian people and beneficial only to certain groups and interests.

Some of the most notorious examples were the controversial draft land act and the post-privatization control act, in which Borisov made overt personal interventions, often rushing into the Parliament in the very last minute – a situation that does not seem right for an averagely-flawed liberal democracy.

Other than that, the new political season started with a bitter exchange of words between GERB's two informal partners, the rightist Blue Coalition and the nationalist party Ataka, whose leader Volen Siderov declared enthusiastically in Parliament that he would start a guerrilla uprising if the former's leader Ivan Kostov was admitted formally to the government.

Interestingly, at the same time the Deputy Chair of the ethnic Turkish opposition centrist party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) Lyutvi Mestan expressed from the floor the idea that the Blue Coalition should join the opposition of DPS and the Socialists (BSP).

Former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev declared BSP's intention to initiate a no confidence vote, which wrapped up the storm-in-a-teacup picture of Bulgarian politics.

The Ataka party (21 MPs) remains the staunchest ally of ruling GERB (117 MPs out of 240), and even if the Blue Coalition turns oppositional – which it likely won't – the Borisov government should remain pretty stable.

As Bulgaria is struggling with the effects of the global economic crisis, its hospitals and health care are in disarray, the education and science sectors have virtually collapsed with the latest budget cuts, the social spending does not seem to be quite sufficient, and the pension reform is a huge issue.

Yet, the country's macroeconomic framework remains stable; the budget deficit went down from BGN 1.5 B to BGN 1.23 B in July, and the trade gap has started to close slowly as the export-oriented sectors are inching up.

The Interior Ministry led by Tsvetan Tsvetanov has been staging special operations day and night, already the subject of ridicule as they have led to busting of endless mafia rings, and no actual sentences. This has been rigorously blamed on the "corrupt" judiciary, and it is yet to be seen how the special anti-mafia tribunal to be set up shortly will play out.

The Borisov government has carried out some much advertised reforms with respect to the absorption of EU funds, which are supposed to save Bulgaria from the loss of billions of euros. The positive effects, if any, of those, however, will not be felt until the very end of the Cabinet's term in 2013.

Of course, the Borisov government has won much international praise – but so had the governments of Kostov (1997-2001), Saxe-Coburg (2001-2005), and Stanishev (2005-2009). And that does very little for those actually residing in the country.

The point here is that the next two years will certainly be rather rough; but if the government remains stable and its policies – at least relatively prudent (including in publicly sensitive spheres: health, education, pension reform), with the improvement of the international economic environment, the Bulgarians should have the chance to claw their way out of the crisis, and become more hopeful for the post 2013 period.

Much of that depends on what kind of "restroom" Bulgarian politics will end up more like being – the not unpleasant, scented place in your home that you rarely have to think of, or the dirty public toilet at a Bulgarian train station where you (should) really dread going.

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