Happy new government Bulgaria!
Boyko Borisov – his very name promises a bout of fisticuffs! The snow-shoveling get-things-done Bulgarian prototype with his serious/mournful expression is now the lauded new Prime Minister of Bulgaria. I am sure he will deal as masterfully with Bulgaria’s crisis as he did with Sofia’s road and rubbish problems. He will lead his team like Christo Stoichkov to resounding victory! (Are you sure about this? ed.)
An ironic cheer for Ahmed Dogan the only politician to perhaps unwittingly take the election campaign to a much needed ideological level, leading voters to at least a muddy understanding of what kind of people rule us.
A roar of bafflement at the clown tram driver Stanishev and his total lack of any discernable socialist advocacy. Rightly comparisons have been drawn with the British Labour party and their perceived betrayal of their natural electorate. In Labour heartlands pensioners are voting BNP. In Burgas they vote Ataka.
A certain satisfaction that the vote buying oligarchs of Lider/Novoto Vreme failed to reach the required four percent despite their smug portraits beneath the sanctimoniously meaningless slogan “We want change”
A farewell to those style icons of the Tsar’s party, Milen Velchev and Daniel Vulchev, though they are assured photo-shoots for fashion magazines for at least the next three years. – perhaps Spas Roussev can provide his yacht in Monte Carlo again.
And a really sad farewell to The Ministry of Extraordinary Situations – that fabulous emblem of Bulgarian surreality. It was nice to think in the hurly burly of everyday challenges that next to Saint Nedelya cathedral, site of the 1925 bomb blast, was a Ministry devoted to responding to or perhaps even devising the extraordinary situations that every Bulgarian encounters every five minutes.
In 1944 Boyko Borisov’s grandfather was brutally murdered by the new Communist masters. Now times are more tender. As a signal of new decisive rule, the ex-Deputy Minister of Extraordinary Situations was arrested yesterday for gross corruption. Sadly for national stereotypes the Minister appears to be of gypsy origin. At least he won’t be shot or turned into soap as some supporters of Ataka would doubtless advocate.
Finally massive cheers that a whole lot of ruffians whose posters littered Burgas failed to gain any votes. I pay particular attention to Ivailo Drazhev, whose slogan Put a stop to shame I found deliciously ironic given his chequered and unpunished past; and the plump fat neck, former associate of Volen Ziderov, Pavel Chernev, the man famous for not being present when innocent motorists were being beaten on the Plovdiv motorway.
Well the axe fell and Kostov gained new credibility as the dark brooding face of Borisov rose in the new dawn.
God bless Bulgaria.
