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© Julia Lazarova
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s interview with the German daily Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung is about to be overwhelmed by no less drastic actions by the authorities, despite his personal confirmation that the photos with the lumps and bars in his bedroom drawer They are real and are not mounted. The interview is a de facto recognition and disclosure of a violation of national security and the voluntary or involuntary participation of the Prime Minister himself in this advance, but the state institutions, first of all the Prosecutor’s Office and the SANS, which in a normal state should reveal the truth, do not react. While they are silent, Dnevnik turns to experts such as political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, philosophers to explain the Bulgarian phenomenon, in which words and concepts have lost their meaning.
It’s Strahil Deliiski Doctor in Political Science, he teaches political communication and political anthropology at the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
What is your reading of Prime Minister Borissov’s interview with the German media?
– This interview is probably dictated by the media consultants around Borisov’s understanding of the need to communicate certain issues that have occupied the public consciousness for some time. An attempt to impose interpretations that absolve the Prime Minister of responsibility. At the same time, the interview was published in a German foreign medium, which shows that it is intended not only for the Bulgarian audience. This, in turn, is an indirect recognition that Borissov has a reputation problem beyond our territory.
However, look at the framework through which the problem with photos, the use of symbols and spy images is told. A story in which Borisov is a victim. His enemies are bad and they want to discredit him because he is one of the good guys. And something very important: Borissov is one of the good guys, because he has done and is doing exclusively and only “pro-European” and “pro-Atlantic” things. Obviously, he knows very well his sources of legitimacy for Europe.
But do European leaders in Brussels like Borissov, or at least defend him?
– Many years ago a colleague from the Balkans introduced the concept of stabilocracy – These are specific political regimes, typical mostly of the Western Balkans, in which the so-called stability is derived as the ultimate and supreme objective of governance. The quality of democracy and the quality of life are secondary to the stabilocratic management paradigm.
The key value of stabilocracy is the conviction that “promoting” and respecting the interests of the EU and the West as a whole is a sufficient basis for the political legitimacy of the regime. Beyond that, they can do whatever they want in the intimate spaces of their own countries. Therefore, clientelistic and informal structures and control of the media often hide behind the stability and pro-European stance. This interview is impossible without this stabilocratic consensus.
What is the science explanation for this new Bulgarian phenomenon? The loss of meaning of words in the Bulgarian language, for example, the concept of exposure or self-exposure. The Prime Minister confirms that people enter his bedroom, leave lumps in his locker, take pictures, go out, come back – himself or others, take pictures again, including him while he is sleeping, and all this no longer disturbs hearing and the mind of mass public opinion, am I not just referring to the lack of reaction from state institutions?
– We have accepted that the assessment of the behavior of politicians, of the events in which they participate, is
function of the shared understanding of the existence of certain borders and norms. This happens by virtue of the call. taboo of certain actions. We simply accept that certain things should not be done. In recent years, the Bulgarian public has freed the political sphere from all norms and borders. Everyone can talk and do whatever they want. Everything is permitted.
The reasons for this are not one or two. Starting from the cultural and cognitive baggage of leading Bulgarian politicians, we went through the specific relationships between the media and the government and arrived at the deep crisis of values of a dramatically divided, atomized and disintegrating society.
Politicians speak and do what they want because they are aware that they are in their position, not because of a deep democratic connection with their constituents, but because of their intimate relationships with secret and open corporate structures. Just remember how during the scandal with Valery Simeonov and the mothers of “The system kills us”, representatives of various associations of large capitals backed him.
But this is a very long and difficult conversation.
Do you think that the prime minister likes your story very much in front of the German journalist and that is why he willingly circulates it or because he knows that his explanations satisfy the mass public opinion? If the latter, why would such behavior of a prime minister, including his audio record language, “go” in front of the people?
– I have already pointed out that the audience for this interview transcends our national borders. But you are asking a very important question: what is “going on” in front of people. Here I think Borisov has a very serious problem. And it is that their public image and their behavior are absolutely inappropriate for the so-called young generation.
It’s just that Borisov and the young people inhabit different cultural, aesthetic and cognitive universes. And these “young people” will form the huge body of future voters.
I don’t know if the team around the prime minister doesn’t realize it or he doesn’t, but he doesn’t see it as a problem, because Borissov’s power horizon is short enough. In any case, Borissov is trying to win public support through highly polarized speech. Speaking of which his own shaker likes it better.
Speech based on the understanding that this campaign will be enough for him to win the elections. And we have to admit that it is here. Which is also a recognition of a capitulated political system. A system that cannot produce a compelling political alternative, despite the tangible need of the majority for one.
