Bulgarians' Trust in Parliament Crashes Down to 22% - Poll

According to a recent poll, 71% of Bulgarians mistrust the Parliament. File photo

The large majority of Bulgarians don't trust the country's institutions, according to results from a poll of the Center for Analysis and Marketing.

The poll, revealed during a press conference Sunday, shows that 71% mistrust the Parliament, while the approval has crashed to only 22%.

The Army and the Police have 40% approval; the cabinet - 36%, followed by the Office of the President with 33%, local administrations with 32%; the Court system – 20% and the Prosecutor's Office with 19%.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has only 3% approval.

Nearly 34% say they were alarmed by the incident in the village of Katunitsa; 38% were somewhat alarmed; 15% were rather unworried, while 11% have answered that there is no reason to worry at all.

The incident in Katunitsa, near Bulgaria's second largest city of Plovdiv, happened on September 23, when Angel Petrov, 19, was run over and killed by a van driven by an associate of notorious local Roma boss Kiril Rashkov aka Tsar Kiro. The incident triggered large-scale violence in the village, which quickly spread across the country, with some of the protests turning into clashes between ethnic Bulgarians and Roma. Hundreds were arrested.

Tsar Kiro was also detained on September 28, and is held behind bars on charges of making death threats to Katunitsa residents. He is also probed for large-scale tax evasion.

35% of the respondents in the poll say the conflict is an expression of civil discontent against Rashkov's criminal activities and impunity, and that there was no ethnic tension; 43% believe the discontent had turned into an ethnic issue while 15% see it as a purely ethnic one between Bulgarians and Roma from the village.

61%, however, have faith in the government having enough resource to guarantee ethnic peace and security in the country; only 28% are of the opposite opinion.

The poll has been conducted among 1 024 respondents between September 30 and October 9, 2011.

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