Luckily for everyone, no one is truly worried about what happens to elections in Bulgaria. As the old Soviet era joke went (admittedly, the original is about Mongolia): "We're the most independent country in the world, because nothing depends on us!"
@@alextomov2237 What I was saying is that regardless of who is being paid by whom, when you sum up the local media you end up with pretty much the same interpretation. I also think that the impartiality of our local media has improved a lot in recent years.
The big plot twist at the end of this election season will be Boiko is Peevskis's uncle. And the they fucked. In the next election season Peevski backstabs Boiko and sends him to jail
It's worth mentioning also that despite EU's criticisms of Bulgaria's corruption issue, Ursula von der Leyen personally came to Bulgaria to lend support to GERB-SDS in the run up to the latest elections. GERB-SDS is a member of EPP so apparently a political group's interests supersede principles.
Ursula is more corrupt than FIdesz and Gerb-sds combined. Just because they don't have institution to observe EU doesn't mean they are not severely corrupt organization.
Bulgarian politics has been decently stable in the last 20 years, so this comment doesn't make sense. Not saying things were going well but instability was not the issue.
@@PhthaloJohnsonWhat are you even saying? Stable going down, like titanic stable sinkage. For the last 3 years Bulgaria is barely moving forward precisely because the top is shaking. Personally I hope for 6 more elections those next 3 years and get rid of the bad blood bit by bit.
Eastern european parties be like: Mafia disguised as either right wing conservative or social democrat Useless green party Liberals that only city dwellers vote for Ultra pro EU fail party that gets 2 seats on average Minority party that never breaks the 5% vote limit Christian democrats (new free holidays if in power) 3 different flavours of Euro sceptic nazis
You missed out on soooo much juicy details. In the last week alone: - the DPS party, formaly headed by Peevsky, and in the background being run by it's founder Ahmed Dogan, saw its first ever split in the vote and failed to back Borisov's proposal for a government. It could very well split into 2 separate wings, due to ethnic and financial reasons. - The latest and smallest party - Velichie (a new nationalist party), which as a surprise to all polling agencies, managed to take 4% of the last vote, split up due to inner occusations of corruption and siding with the enemy, death threats were being exchanged between its leaders, and it basically no longer exists. Less than 30 days after the election. - The nationalist Revival party is proposing to work with the PP party. They represent two absolutely opposite worldviews and are totally non-compatible. What a fun time to follow politics.
I did a study about disillusionment with democracy in Europe, Bulgaria made the top 3 in every metric when it came to the countries whos citizens are most disillusioned with democracy and don't trust their institutions.
what kind of democracy is this if your judicial system is held by the mafia? We have not been in democracy in the first place, let alone be disillusioned with it
How can you trust the government when one of the parliament’s drug dealer smashed a subway elevator taking two young women’s lives, in the centre of the capital, whilst being with a policewoman in the car driving at 180 km/h and the woman telling him which roads to avoid because there was police whilst the driver was under home arrest.
As I Bulgarian it breaks my heart that we made it to the world news... Also the main problem in my opinion is that only 36% of the population even votes. The situation is much worse than you think. People lost faith...
How can you not lose hope, every Party says they are gonna do something but do something entirely different, I used to care a lot about voting and democracy, but now it's like, what's the point?
I think Bulgaria have much bigger problems, the population decrease is one of them. I visited Bulgaria a few years ago, even turkish towns who you expect making more children were empty of people. Since 1990 Bulgarian population decreased by 25%. How can you be a stable country when every young people tries to go to Western Europe?
Lost faith in what lol. The political system depends on the people, it represents them. If they can't find a representative that's not a political problem, that's a problem of every citizen. And Im saying this as a Bulgarian.
The most interesting thing about this whole debacle is that the country has performed quite well economically during the last 3 years. It turns out that Bulgaria runs well without a government.
It doing well by KPI but in reality all major projects are frozen, roads are barely supported, we cannot obtain the post-covid economic boost package yet, while all our neighbours are progressing significantly in the last 3 years.
@@roxader4299 So what? People are moving to the bigger cities for better opportunities leading to higher urbanisation. What’s the issue with that? We’re moving from agriculture-based economy to a service-based economy, so the countryside is emptying out. We have been added to the World Bank’s list of high income countries for the first time and it makes sense. As a young person from a mid-size Bulgarian city my living standards have improved dramatically in my lifetime.
How about EPPs Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Webber personally supporting Boyko Borissov and his party GERB and being blind about how corrupted he/they are. And than we are wondering why euroscepticism grows…
I'm Bulgarian, and this video is quite accurate. The ГЕРБ-ДПС (GERB-DPS) proposed government is being voted on today (3 July 2024) and is expected to fail. It's not completely certain that we'll have new elections because ИТН (ITN, There is Such a People) or Величие (Velichie, Greatness) might end up supporting some sort of government. The decrease of voter turnout is mainly because many voters felt betrayed by the coalition between ГЕРБ (GERB) and the reformist parties ПП-ДБ (PP-DB) and they didn't go to the polling stations. ДПС (DPS, the Turkish party) have a more or less fixed electorate support, and even though their votes barely changed, they got more seats due to the low turnout.
Избирателната активност падна доста още през юли 2021. Просто проблема е, че огромна част от населението няма никакво доверие в НС и като цяло в цялата политическа система. Май ще ходя да живея в Гърция.
yea... my wife used to make sure she makes it to the bulgarian embassy in switzerland for every election because it was very important to her. but she hasnt been doing it in the recent few.
They were were wrong about no one forming a government after the NOV 2021 elections. PP (We continue the change) managed to form a government trough an unheard of (at least in Bulgaria) 4 party coalition with BSP, ITN and DB. Though the government was toppled after 9 months by ITN leaving the coalition due to the lift of the VETO for accession of Macedonia into the EU. So with that and the rotational government of PP+DB with GERB and support from DPS (for constitutional amendments), PPDB were the only party/coalition that was able to form governments in the last years and both times they were toppled mainly by GERB, DPS, Revival (Vazrazhdane) and ITN.
Part of the reason for the low voter turnout is that the election was held in summer and many people were on holiday. But most just couldn't be bothered because they don't think elections make a difference. Which is precisely what these people want you to think.
The situation in Bulgaria is extremely dangerous for the entire EU and NATO, but it is often not understood. The economic stagnation and lack of development leads to severe disappointment among the Bulgarians, and this can break this country away from Europe and NATO. It will be a geopolitical disaster for the entire southern flank of NATO and the EU. Russia does not accidentally call Bulgaria the "gateway to the Balkans". A rupture of Bulgaria would open up an entire Russian corridor from the Black Sea to the Adriatic through Serbia and Montenegro, along with Hungary. shaking Bulgaria will also sabotage the Three Seas initiative. Bulgaria is an extremely important country geopolitically - it borders the Western Balkans, controls Europe's busiest land border with Turkey, and in the east has a key role in the Black Sea and the conflict in Ukraine. Bulgaria is a huge supplier of weapons of Soviet models for Ukraine. The American historian, publicist and analyst Robert Kaplan calls the Bulgarians "the lonely man of the Balkans". Very few journalists and analysts understand this nation, and this can play a bad joke on European politics and NATO's defense capabilities. The Bulgarians are left as a periphery and for many Western diplomats this is an incomprehensible country and people. Russia will use this chance and everyone in the Balkans knows it. Bulgaria must be helped. A rupture in this part of the Balkans and Eastern Europe is a colossal threat to Europe.
Yeah, the majority of us who are pro eu are simply not expecting the EU to do much. Being in the western bloc is a positive in our eyes, but we are simply not cared about. Seen as a dying country with a dying people and the future... It ain't looking nice
Regardless the country institutions still work , I think we got used to it , so one could say we have no absolute concentrated powers in one person and democracy truly is working ? 😅
@@XD-bx6eesurprisingly after the recent election it seems the new government formation in Belgium will be the smoothest one in a while. It can take more than a year to form a government in Belgium, it hasn’t even been a month and the parties are complaining that it’s not going fast enough. Edit: or rather we have progress after less than a month which is super rare.
You're mispronouncing pretty much anything with an "e" in it. The letter never changes its sound in Bulgarian (and possibly other Slavic languages), it's always hard "e", like in Shrek or Belgium
Bulgaria has entered a cycle of constant elections due to the dependency of all parties on Russia amidst an ongoing war. There are three so-called Euro-Atlantic parties, one of which facilitated the TurkStream pipeline, pivotal before Russia's war against Ukraine. Boyko Borissov, the leader of the party that has seized control of all media and institutions, has dismantled democracy. For many years, there have been no political debates or fair elections, resulting in only 30% of Bulgarians voting. This percentage is inflated by bought and corporate votes. 2 years ago before this election spiral, there were massive protests against mafia and corruption by hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians in the capital, which were not supported by EU leaders even after the police beat mothers and journalist. Instead, they legitimized the fraudulent elections and declared GERB a democratically elected party. The grim reality is that European Union leaders support the mafia, funneling billions to destroy the economy through corporate networks. During the last elections, Ursula von der Leyen personally came to support Borissov and his party, GERB in Plovdiv. Ironically, the opposition, who were supposed to fight against the mafia, collaborated with the mafia parties to amend the Constitution, allowing GERB to form a caretaker government and secure election victory. It’s a bleak picture: Russia and the EU appear to be aligned, and the human lives lost in the war are seemingly sacrificed for the arms industry's benefit.
Why are people blaming russia for everything ? Like your shoe lases would be untied and you would blame the russians. They have no influence here and its not like they are actively trying to gain any.
Been there done that, sorry for you Bulgaria. We had 5 elections between 2019-2023 in Israel, including during the hight of COVID19. Netanyahu was just starting his corruption trial, there was supposed to be a rotational government between Netanyahu and Ganz, but of course Netanyahu dissolved the Knesset after just a few months. Then, we had an 8 parties government with capitalists, socialists, liberals, religious zionists and islamists. We had a prime minister with 6 seats (out 120 seats in the parliament). Now Netanyahu is "leading" the worst government ever. I'm waiting to see him in Hague.
*I LIVE IN BULGARIA* they like elections - its a national pastime, you get a holiday for each one. EDIT this is incorrect - they stop alcohol sales BUT being serious - this country runs better with NO government than the Uk under the Tories - 5% GDP growth this year, 4 new hospitals in my city alone, 2 new free universities, amazing public transport, public toilets are better than most UK 4* hotels. And its 33ºC today
@@piccalillipit9211 I am Bulgarian from Burgas and what you describe is only in the Burgas region. The rest of the country looks like Mariupol before the reconstruction.
Bulgarian here; the simple truth is that Borisov is a genius at the game called Bulgarian politics. He always comes as a winner despite the situation he is in. The anti-corruption coalition are fine but you can’t win a game playing by the rules while your opponent doesn’t play by that rules.
It’s not that Borisov is so brilliant, but the others are just pathetic. Don’t get me wrong, he is cunning and is great at playing the game of thrones, however the other parties are doing so miserably that they make him look like a genius…
Bulgarian here: Nice job in covering 3 year TLDR. Just one note - we had a sub 30% voter participation at the last elections. GERB has been holding power for almost 20 years now and during that time they’ve managed to get their tentacles all over the country - judicial system, administration, public spending, foreign and internal affairs etc. Because of GERB people think that our time in the EU hasn’t been worth it because loads of EU grants ended up in GERB related mailbox companies, without the people seeing anything from that. Another issue is that a lot of people in here, especially over 40 y.o., think that our time in the EU was for the worst and blame the EU instead of corrupt practices of GERB. This gave way to nationalist parties and people who think russia is the best place in the world, while sending their kids to study in the Netherlands, buy German cars and wear Italian clothes, while keeping their savings in EUR/USD/CHF. PP were the closest we got to a fresh start, but GERB were just way too ahead in terms of having a grip on the country.
You were wrong about no one forming a government after the NOV 2021 elections. PP (We continue the change) managed to form a government trough an unheard of (at least in Bulgaria) 4 party coalition with BSP, ITN and DB. Though the government was toppled after 9 months by ITN leaving the coalition due to the lift of the VETO for accession of Macedonia into the EU. So with that and the rotational government of PP+DB with GERB and support from DPS (for constitutional amendments), PPDB were the only party/coalition that was able to form governments in the last years and both times they were toppled mainly by GERB, DPS, Revival (Vazrazhdane) and ITN.
As a Bulgarian, I can simplify things for you - the GERB party's model is like Pyramid. They are always first in vote counts, because the members of the party or close people to Boyko hold different positions in the parliament/ administration/ court/ prosecutor's office and also some of these people are owners of private companies, which again are funded by the party. And if you don't vote for your party, in this case GERB, you can lose your public sector position or if you work for these private companies, they could fire you. So, in a way, we can call this corporate voting. But as a structure, it is a political pyramid. The DPS party is ruled mainly by thieves and oligarchs. They simulate opposition to GERB, but behind the scenes are the same thing. Officially, the party works in the interest of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. The goal of the party is to win the votes of the Turkish minority and be in the parliament as a "crutch" for GERB, so whenever GERB introduces new law which brings corruption, through parliament voting, DPS supports such laws, by voting if there are insufficient vote counts. If there were sufficient vote counts, DPS acts like "opposition". But the main issue in Bulgaria is that the prosecutor's office as a structure is self regulated by law. So, basically, they do what they want. No one can touch them. Only constitutional changes can fix things. And what scares many corrupted Bulgarian politicians, is that if the prosecutor's office start doing their job, many, many politicians will be jailed, including Boyko, because they've been stealing the country for the last 25 years.
Small correction here - DPS do not OFFICIALLY work for the interests of the Turkish minority... It is constitutionally illegal in Bulgaria to form a political party based on Ethnicity - that would be racist. Officially it is a party supporting the rights and freedoms of MINORITIES in Bulgaria... It also annoys me how Western media lumps in the Roma with DPS, the Roma are widely just paid votes in Bulgaria, and since many of them are Muslim they vote the way that the Turkish party (DPS) pays them to. I agree with you otherwise, I just want to point out that we have a very decent and well thought out constitution that nobody gives a fuck about and routinely disregards when discussing politics... TLDR: DPS is an unconstitutional party IMO, they shouldn't be allowed to exist and they create ethnic tension in the country by being allowed to exist.
As a bulgarian, I can say that I got more informed by this video than our 3 national news outlets. Not that they don't report all of this, it's just that I got tired of hearing the same lies over and over again. I ain't voting again until we have 3 rounds of a stable government(ie never)
I visited Bulgaria last month on an Eastern European and Türkiye trip and I saw a lot of billboards of politicians and a local explained their elections just keep rolling on and on.
И то и ние се водим западняци тъй като сме в Европа и част от ЕС. България е по-богата и по-стабилна от другите балкански страни , нз какви ги плямпа оня идиот във видеото
That’s a pretty good summary of the current situation! However there’s so much dirt that led to these events that a 9h video won’t be enough to cover it…
Great video and such a pleasure to see the chaos in Bulgarian politics explained in English and without the local bieses. Of course there are other small but crucal details, but the most important thing is that "the deep goverment" doesn't want to loose control and the majority of the population have lost hope long time ago. Such videos can be very helpful. Thanks a lot 🙂
Amazing short and sweet, to the point synopsis of the political picture in Bulgaria - thank you! I have been apolitical for close to two decades, and do not participate in any political processes, including watching news or related TV shows. Decided to click on this vid randomly, and you literally caught me up with the political landscape here at home in less than 10 minutes. Kudos to ya!
Todor Zhivkov actually ruled Bulgaria between 1956 to 1989, but you can say he executed total power after 1962. Still, if you take the 1956 as his start, Zhivkov is the third longest ruling Bulgarian after Tsar Peter I (927-969) and Tsar Ioan Alexander (1331-1371). And his rule was actually not bad to the people, if you accept the realities of the Eastern Block and socialist satellite alignment that our country had towards the USSR. Most repressions of the regime were done prior to Zhivkov coming to power, and this is a fact worth to be noted.
@@soundscape26 the far right in germany always says the government is chaos, it ruins the country. man they keep shut their eyes to make sure they dont compare it to other countries around. the far right in germany wants this country to break like the other countries around. just check france, no need to look at even smaller countries.
@@soundscape26that moronic view is why democracy is declining. Its participants have that mentality that its some untouchable religion that people should accept regardless of its consequence. Please wish and try to achieve democratic stability, this democratic age has existed for
Democracy by its very nature isn't really that stable because it allows public views from all sides, which is always tricky to get them all working well together, but it's the best system we have compared to the alternatives when it come to giving the people a voice, but with so many voice, stability was never going to be its strong point, but compared to the alternatives, it's a far better system. The only real flaws I see is that there needs to be more transparency on everything governments are doing with the voters, basically, there's too much of a disconnect from the voters and the ones in powers and it's creating a divide of mistrust, in other words, if governments actually listen to the people and actually did what they wanted, things would be a lot calmer in the west now, and this is a western thing with the far right in Europe, to what's going on in the US, the pattern is the same, lack of trust from voters in the system.
Yeah, I am betting more money on a major military conflict in the region, that a stable government anytime soon. Sadly, the situation is completely hopeless.
I never thought l'd hear such a thing as a "bulgarian mafia" in my lifetime, but here we are. My condolences to the bulgarian people for having to suffer through this political impasse.
oh the mafia issue if pretty big here, Bulgaria is one of the safest countries out there for the average day-to-day person, but if you decide to start a business here, then shit can get real with mafia
@@diogorodrigues747 Post-Soviet refers to countries that were part of the USSR, from what I know. Bulgaria wasn't. But even so, I think the Baltics are prob doing better than Portugal, especially Estonia. And if you're talking about post-Communist countries in general, I think Czech Republic & Slovenia have surpassed Portugal. In terms of just political stability, a lot of countries can be better than a rich one, even if they are poor. Romania has been very stable politically in these past tumultous years, for example. 🙂
@@dyawr Some countries are doing great (I think Estonia is an example for all of Europe, for example), but most of them are sh*tty countries infested with corruption, oligarchs and vatniks.
Hey! Could you make a video about Romanian politics some day? A lot has been happening these years, now after the last EU and local elections (which took place on the same day) accusations of voter fraud have been flying around as a record number of votes were annulled, in addition to many other scandals.
Omg, spare me. *Romania has been stable for the past few years.* And actually doing well. There haven't been any serious accusations of election fraud, just a loud candidate in a place or two, upset about losing.
Can you ppl *stop* putting our country down every chance you get & reinforcing this horrible negative stereotypes about it, that often have *nothing* to do with reality? This is nothing but an inferiority complex in Romanian society, that fuels other people's prejudice. 🙄
I think your view of corruption in Bulgaria is somewhat false. Corruption is endemic in every aspect of Bulgarian life and this is just reflected in politics. After living in Bulgaria for 7 years, I would say that the basic message is, "I want everything but pay nothing and especially if I can find a way not to pay." Bulgarians completely know the situation but don't really want things to change if it affects their pockets.
Factually incorrect statement. Did you personally ask every single Bulgarian before making such a bold claim? There are plenty of people that want things to change and you're simply spitting in their faces by refusing to acknowledge they exist.
To be fair to my fellow Bulgarians they did want things to change, which is why they put a whole bunch of reformist parties in parliament. Its the failure of those reformists to make any sort of functional government that has us in this dead end
@@i.m.3940wym? Of course there are people who want change, but most of the people are ok with bribing cops while complaining how corrupt everything is. Corruption is a deal you are not part of as they say...
It is becoming more and more so by the day. During the election campaign ITN said for example that they oppose giving more military aid to Ukraine. Oh, and they also joined ECR in the EU. ITN is turning into a new IMRO, a more moderate version of the far right parties Revival and Velichie.
ITN are the reason why we need to have 10% instead of the current 4% vote barrier to enter in the parliament. Utterly useless party that have brought nothing to the table except cheap populism and dumb decisions that followed horrible consequences. When they were in coalition with PP they had 4 ministers: 1 exiled all sponsors from the sport venues, 1 speculated and raised the price of electricity to the point where many factories need it to temporarily close and got indebt, 1 shutdown all major infrastructure projects and proudly said that there won't be starting as long as he is minister and finally, 1 that was so incompetent as minister of foreign affairs that when the war in Ukraine started she didn't have any idea how to bring our citizen back to the country and few sailors were stuck in Mariupol on the battlefield.
ITN is a populist party that exists only based on the pop-folk singer and a TV showman. Their voter's political taste is that of a man who will invest in 3in1 power tool to start his professional job, just because it's "seen on TV".
@@skillerbg Well given that Slavi literaly said in a french interview that he whant for Bulgaria to be rulled by the EU ( an EU that is an united country ) which just means he dosnt whant us to be a free country like Jivkov whnated us to be part of the USSR. He just lost the lefth voters so he turned right.
*I LIVE IN BULGARIA* dont let the political situation fool you - things work VERY well here - I found a pot hole last week - reported it on the city app. 2 days later I got a message and a picture to show they had fixed it. Power is VERY devolved here - the national government only deal with truly national issues like defence and trade deals. My city is Burgas - look it up and tell me if it looks like a UK city
@@darkoparko6685 - I have not travelled since before the pandemic - but I would not say its that different from Plovdiv, Valiko Tarnovo, Varna. Maybe it is and I have not noticed??
A thing not mentioned in the video but I think is very important - the EU are shooting themselves in the foot and are fully responsible for the rise in EU scepticism. Firstly not only the failure to address corruption in Bulgaria but Ursula von der Leyen endorsed Borisov and GERB in the last election in June which annoyed a lot of pro-EU Bulgarians and also gave more ammunition to anti-EU parties, just so she can secure a few more votes in the EU parliament.
I think a more correct way of saying this is that EU successfully failed to address corruption, which is a very intentional move. They have no interest in removing corruption in Bulgaria or in the EU. If corruption is removed they will all fall down so it is not in their interest to remove it. Everything is by design.
@@trickshady2 As a staunch believer in the idea of united Europe, I tend to disagree. Bulgaria had two governments, albeit short in the past few years that showed, at least to me that Bulgaria can be governed in a different fashion. Without fear, without dealings behind closed doors. You can criticize Denkov and before that Petkov for mistakes they have made, but education wise, way of speaking are light years ahead of Borisov ever was. For the first time in years I did not cringe at Bulgarian politicians side by side with our international partners and for the first time in 12 years the prime minister was not a clown, and for me that was breath of fresh air. It's all right to offer feedback, and I can agree the EU has a lot of issues, but at the end of the day it's politics everywhere, there are bad apples and there are good apples but, but von der Leyen proved herself to be very much a bad apple, just so she can stay in power. It's called basic hygiene and she does not have it. Honestly, I am quite disappointed she stooped so low just to score 1 or 2 MEP.
Living in Bulgaria has become beyond depressing. Every aspect of this country is beyond corrupt. I work as a doctor and sadly even healthcare is beyond repair and in need of an ground up reform. It's gotten to the point where It might just be better for most people to jump ship to west europe.
Man this was actually depressing to watch, even though I'm not From Bulgaria and I've been rather ignorant of Bulgarian politics until now. I mean just having a known mafia oligarch guy be a prominent figure in politics... and having one of the most powerful politicians be verifiably corrupt and persecutable (though the latter isn't unique even amongst more powerful nations cough Trump cough)
As dumb qs it might sound in reality Boiko is one of the least corrupt politicians we have. When the Reformists came to power corruption increased and the standard of livong dropped A LOT.
Trumps, Bidens, Clintons, Bushes, Pellosies. There are so many clans in the US politics that are no different than mafia families. The difference is that US is rich and Bulgarians are poor so that's why americans don't care.
The war destroyed every hope of stable coalition in the opposition, because a lot of parties and people in general in Bulgaria are rusophilic anti EU, nationalist, populist, conservative. Of course there was devide because of ever existing problems like the grean deal, liberal policies and the frictions with Macedonia, but that was manageable. The whole crisis is because the whole nation has to deside whether we wanna stay close friend with Russia or not?
The results would be the same if we hadn't elections. It looks like we have the right to vote (officialy), but in the end of the day the mafia is manipulating the vote.
@@dyawr 60% of the votes were either corporate, bribed or government workers and their families and friends who always go and vote for the people who gave them their positions (aligned with the mob-parties until death basically). The elections will only be "free" when turnout is much much higher (only 32% of the eligible voters actually went to the polls) and that will never happen. It's both sick and self-sustaining, a modern form of feudalism.
Honestly this is pretty accurate so job well done. Everything is chaotic, there are new parties emerging, turning out to be related to the big players once again so its one big circus..
Good video, it explains to foreigners how tragic our politics are. Some additional things are: Borissov was arrested and spent a night in prison, but of course the BG law system allowed him to find his way out of a court case; MRF (ДПС) is basically a Turkish party which is illegal by constitutional law and yet it is somehow allowed and they never get sanctioned; Peevski is not just a mafia kingpin, he has been sanctioned by the US based on the Magnitsky Act, yet he is somehow not just not imprisoned, he's one of our top politicians...
This is a really good summary. Only two points I want to add: - The new "Greatness" party surprised everyone when they got in parliament, as nobody in the media has talked about them before, but it turns out they had promoted themselves hardcore in RUclips, TikTok, Telegram, etc. They are a very weird mix of a pro-Russian party, combined with a Ponzi scheme type business, some people call them a cult and possibly also have a small paramilitary squad as well. There are a bunch of pro-Russian influencers attached to them as well. - There is also talk that the current president will resign, create a party and come as a savior from the chaos. Which is a bit worrying, as he seems as possibly a bit authoritarian and pro-Russian, and is a very good political operator overall, has a bit of Orban vibes to him.
We need someone to be like Orban what's wrong and worrying about that i can't understand people they don't want GERB-SDS DPS to be leaders but they are worried about Rumen Radev you can't even put up your own mind yikes. At least the leader will put his country and nation before NATO Europe Alliance and won't even agree with them Orban is a example how leader should act not like our politicians to ass lick for money
@@alexandernaydenov7539 Well Radev worked clolsley whit NATO before and he but the curent leaders of PP in power and from their leaked info we know they where put in power by the Americans, which to me means an USA person ( probably a fromer or curent NATO person ) who had some links to Radev told him to put them in power. So really Radev either tries to play bouth sides for something better or he does it all for himself. Given that we have so much coruption here i doubt everyone, but you can judge for yourself.
Well, according to my opinion as someone who is not Bulgarian, but live there for more than 15 years, these are the reason: 1. The President Radev and Bojko Borisov - both very corrupted and sick for power 2. Mass migration due to having no progress in the country. BG is still the poorest country in the EU 3. Terrible foreign policy, especially towards the neighbors. 4. The economy is not doing well so people are losing hope. 5. The international political factors have different interests, especially because BG still maintains close relations with Russia where among the other the President has significant role 6. Political Parties are not offering modern and promising solutions.
@@dimitardimitrov8449 Not as hard as you might think. Most come from the biblical names Theodor, Paul and so fort. The thing about surenames is, the ov on the end means literally "of or from" in eglish so when you hear Borisov for instance it means that the person is "from the family of Boris" :) The pronounciation is harder as we have hard R opposed to english speaking nations like Spanians do.
The biggest issue with Bulgaria is the total birth collapse. There are almost no new generation in Bulgaria. Population fall keeps getting worse and worse making them weaker. Also, Bulgaria has almost half a million Turks and they live in the south so what is stopping future Turkey from taking that land sort of what they did in Cyprus.
Teelo , "Prodaljzavame Promyanata" is too hard to pronounce by an English speaker. 😅 So, it's coming the "pee-pee" (пиш-пиш) party. They happened to be bigger crooks than everyone else before them, by the way.
If we look at Belgium, The Netherlands (sometimes) the US and others we see an inability to form a political consensus because people are viewing the world in very different ways. I don't know how to fix that.
I'm a Bulgarian who needed this video in order to understand what is going on in my own country. And btw I was in tears after the last votes. I feel hopeless and I feel weak as a citizen too. It literally feels like nothing can be changed for good and things are only going worse. Just try to imagine the level of manipulation and misinformation we are dealing with - I needed this video from a foreign creator in order to understand what has been going on since I've been voting (I've literally been voting since 2021).
Most of our problems come from external pressure by our so called partners in EU, NATO and our enemy Russia (last one had always driven corruption in Bulgaria). There was some sort of a government from January 2022 till June 2022, however EU was putting pressure on Bulgaria to cave for N Macedonia veto and that made one of the 4 political parties withdraw from the coalition ... another election. Then there was a preasure from US for a new stable government and two parties that should have never form a government together did it so US is happy and Ukraine can get some weapons and ammo, so thank you USA for fu***** up our country.
You have lost your mind to think Mariya Gabriel, an euro commissioner from GERB (EPP), with which the last regular government was possible, has anything to do with USA.
@@JkaBG, where did I mentioned the puppet Maria? I said that USA pushed Continue the Change to go in coalition with GERB so we can sent weapons to Ukraine.
The thing is GERB is not right-wing per se, more of a corrupt centrist party. However, right-wing parties are gaining more and more prominence, sadly. And as for the Harvard grads had less linguistic capabilities than the minorities, only mounted our debt and embarrassed us even further... MRF as u called it - DPS, with Peevski on top is ... disgusting, but this is mainly because the voter activity has dropped and only the paid voters go to the polls. If we had 70-80% activity - neither GERB, nor DPS would have been so ahead in the race. After 6 elections in 3 years, following more than a year of vigorous protests - people are disheartened and disengaging.
USA: Oh no we are having our once every 4 year election, this is is so Tense
Bulgaria: Amateurs.
Luckily for everyone, no one is truly worried about what happens to elections in Bulgaria. As the old Soviet era joke went (admittedly, the original is about Mongolia): "We're the most independent country in the world, because nothing depends on us!"
@@boyanpenev9822 Lol, good one. 🤭 Could apply to many countries tbf
😂
We are supposed to have elections once every 4 years too, but we don't like any of the parties.
American elections are every two years, and every year in some states.
As a Bulgarian, I prefer listening to this rather than to local interpretations.
what's the difference? He did a pretty good job and summarised local interpretations to his best
At least this isn't sponsored by the mafia
бъди бойката
@@cmnt-fi3bhhe’s not on an agenda , he’s being neutral , therefore why we would prefer to listen to this guy lol
@@alextomov2237 What I was saying is that regardless of who is being paid by whom, when you sum up the local media you end up with pretty much the same interpretation. I also think that the impartiality of our local media has improved a lot in recent years.
At this rate Bulgarian political parties will depress voters until only those running for seats are doing the voting.
Yep
Exactly what's happening right now
And then THEY stop voting
This is literally what happened in our last elections
What's with the future tense my brother? You obviously don't know what you're talking about! THIS IS THE PRESENT! :D
as a Bulgarian, this now feels like a comedy version of Game of Thrones.
The big plot twist at the end of this election season will be Boiko is Peevskis's uncle. And the they fucked. In the next election season Peevski backstabs Boiko and sends him to jail
Ha ha ha good one ! Or like " the godfather "
🤣🤣🤣 Тва е много добро👏👏
We have that saying: In other countries, they have a mafia, In Bulgaria the mafia has a country.
Тъжно, но факт!
But then the British Government is legalized corruption especially the house of Lords & the Monarchy, not to mention the City of London.
The West forced mass privatisation in the early 90's everything was downhill from then
Unfortunately, true.
Sadly real
Everyone expects Bulgaria's politics to be "insane" , even if they don't know the details.
"Sane" politics would be newsworthy 🤷🏻♀️
It's worth mentioning also that despite EU's criticisms of Bulgaria's corruption issue, Ursula von der Leyen personally came to Bulgaria to lend support to GERB-SDS in the run up to the latest elections. GERB-SDS is a member of EPP so apparently a political group's interests supersede principles.
Sounds similar to Fidesz in Hungary.
@@souvikrc4499 very much so
Sad, but true. These young guys prove the situation here is clearly visible from the outside, if one wants to see it.
Ursula is more corrupt than FIdesz and Gerb-sds combined. Just because they don't have institution to observe EU doesn't mean they are not severely corrupt organization.
When did she support GERB-SDS? Source?
Bulgaria being stable for once challenge IMPOSSIBLE
Bulgarian politics has been decently stable in the last 20 years, so this comment doesn't make sense. Not saying things were going well but instability was not the issue.
Literally hasn't been an issue since 1997, with one exception in 2014.
@@PhthaloJohnsonWhat are you even saying? Stable going down, like titanic stable sinkage.
For the last 3 years Bulgaria is barely moving forward precisely because the top is shaking. Personally I hope for 6 more elections those next 3 years and get rid of the bad blood bit by bit.
Zhikov made bulgaria stable
Compare to all other Balkan countries we are probably the most stable country here.
"the mafia kingpin" - I could not say it better even if i tried
Eastern european parties be like:
Mafia disguised as either right wing conservative or social democrat
Useless green party
Liberals that only city dwellers vote for
Ultra pro EU fail party that gets 2 seats on average
Minority party that never breaks the 5% vote limit
Christian democrats (new free holidays if in power)
3 different flavours of Euro sceptic nazis
Мислиш че в други държави няма мафия ли
@@stanstankov9153, това прави твърдението грешно?
@@stanstankov9153premium bulgarian copium
@@quaerite_et_invenietis ?
You missed out on soooo much juicy details. In the last week alone:
- the DPS party, formaly headed by Peevsky, and in the background being run by it's founder Ahmed Dogan, saw its first ever split in the vote and failed to back Borisov's proposal for a government. It could very well split into 2 separate wings, due to ethnic and financial reasons.
- The latest and smallest party - Velichie (a new nationalist party), which as a surprise to all polling agencies, managed to take 4% of the last vote, split up due to inner occusations of corruption and siding with the enemy, death threats were being exchanged between its leaders, and it basically no longer exists. Less than 30 days after the election.
- The nationalist Revival party is proposing to work with the PP party. They represent two absolutely opposite worldviews and are totally non-compatible.
What a fun time to follow politics.
I did a study about disillusionment with democracy in Europe, Bulgaria made the top 3 in every metric when it came to the countries whos citizens are most disillusioned with democracy and don't trust their institutions.
yeah, you see that on a daily basis over here. the depressing part is that this is also fairly prevalent among the younger generation.
what kind of democracy is this if your judicial system is held by the mafia? We have not been in democracy in the first place, let alone be disillusioned with it
As a Bulgarian we should be top 1
Bulgarians have no idea what democracy is. They confuse democracy with anarchy.
How can you trust the government when one of the parliament’s drug dealer smashed a subway elevator taking two young women’s lives, in the centre of the capital, whilst being with a policewoman in the car driving at 180 km/h and the woman telling him which roads to avoid because there was police whilst the driver was under home arrest.
As I Bulgarian it breaks my heart that we made it to the world news... Also the main problem in my opinion is that only 36% of the population even votes. The situation is much worse than you think. People lost faith...
Go Back to
Classic Democracy
Stop voting for Gayrine Dickpen
How can you not lose hope, every Party says they are gonna do something but do something entirely different, I used to care a lot about voting and democracy, but now it's like, what's the point?
I think Bulgaria have much bigger problems, the population decrease is one of them. I visited Bulgaria a few years ago, even turkish towns who you expect making more children were empty of people. Since 1990 Bulgarian population decreased by 25%. How can you be a stable country when every young people tries to go to Western Europe?
@@odenat3701 it's the other way round. Young people want to leave because the rest keep voting for the mafia.
Lost faith in what lol. The political system depends on the people, it represents them. If they can't find a representative that's not a political problem, that's a problem of every citizen. And Im saying this as a Bulgarian.
The most interesting thing about this whole debacle is that the country has performed quite well economically during the last 3 years. It turns out that Bulgaria runs well without a government.
apparently better than when with a government 😀
It is doing well only on paper. Once you leave the big cities, the countryside is a wasteland.
Maybe because temporary goverments of experts is apointed between the elections. Maybe they are doing good job, despite not having long term goals.
It doing well by KPI but in reality all major projects are frozen, roads are barely supported, we cannot obtain the post-covid economic boost package yet, while all our neighbours are progressing significantly in the last 3 years.
@@roxader4299 So what? People are moving to the bigger cities for better opportunities leading to higher urbanisation. What’s the issue with that? We’re moving from agriculture-based economy to a service-based economy, so the countryside is emptying out. We have been added to the World Bank’s list of high income countries for the first time and it makes sense. As a young person from a mid-size Bulgarian city my living standards have improved dramatically in my lifetime.
How about EPPs Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Webber personally supporting Boyko Borissov and his party GERB and being blind about how corrupted he/they are. And than we are wondering why euroscepticism grows…
Or Petkov on that note, i still remember him quoting that she would let Bulgaria in eurozone through "the backdoor"
Ursula endorsing Boyko reminds me of the saying: "Takes one to know one."
“Oh my freaking God, again?” - me seeing the title
"haven't I watched this video before?"
@@asheiou "What do you mean you've watched it, its brand new!"
"OH, my freaking God, HOW IS THIS SO BAD!", me, living through it
Don’t use the name of God in vain!
@@asentseto god lighten up
I'm Bulgarian, and this video is quite accurate.
The ГЕРБ-ДПС (GERB-DPS) proposed government is being voted on today (3 July 2024) and is expected to fail. It's not completely certain that we'll have new elections because ИТН (ITN, There is Such a People) or Величие (Velichie, Greatness) might end up supporting some sort of government.
The decrease of voter turnout is mainly because many voters felt betrayed by the coalition between ГЕРБ (GERB) and the reformist parties ПП-ДБ (PP-DB) and they didn't go to the polling stations. ДПС (DPS, the Turkish party) have a more or less fixed electorate support, and even though their votes barely changed, they got more seats due to the low turnout.
Избирателната активност падна доста още през юли 2021. Просто проблема е, че огромна част от населението няма никакво доверие в НС и като цяло в цялата политическа система.
Май ще ходя да живея в Гърция.
yea... my wife used to make sure she makes it to the bulgarian embassy in switzerland for every election because it was very important to her. but she hasnt been doing it in the recent few.
@@PyxleanCool. Have fun in Greece
They were were wrong about no one forming a government after the NOV 2021 elections. PP (We continue the change) managed to form a government trough an unheard of (at least in Bulgaria) 4 party coalition with BSP, ITN and DB. Though the government was toppled after 9 months by ITN leaving the coalition due to the lift of the VETO for accession of Macedonia into the EU. So with that and the rotational government of PP+DB with GERB and support from DPS (for constitutional amendments), PPDB were the only party/coalition that was able to form governments in the last years and both times they were toppled mainly by GERB, DPS, Revival (Vazrazhdane) and ITN.
Part of the reason for the low voter turnout is that the election was held in summer and many people were on holiday.
But most just couldn't be bothered because they don't think elections make a difference. Which is precisely what these people want you to think.
The situation in Bulgaria is extremely dangerous for the entire EU and NATO, but it is often not understood. The economic stagnation and lack of development leads to severe disappointment among the Bulgarians, and this can break this country away from Europe and NATO. It will be a geopolitical disaster for the entire southern flank of NATO and the EU. Russia does not accidentally call Bulgaria the "gateway to the Balkans". A rupture of Bulgaria would open up an entire Russian corridor from the Black Sea to the Adriatic through Serbia and Montenegro, along with Hungary. shaking Bulgaria will also sabotage the Three Seas initiative. Bulgaria is an extremely important country geopolitically - it borders the Western Balkans, controls Europe's busiest land border with Turkey, and in the east has a key role in the Black Sea and the conflict in Ukraine. Bulgaria is a huge supplier of weapons of Soviet models for Ukraine.
The American historian, publicist and analyst Robert Kaplan calls the Bulgarians "the lonely man of the Balkans". Very few journalists and analysts understand this nation, and this can play a bad joke on European politics and NATO's defense capabilities. The Bulgarians are left as a periphery and for many Western diplomats this is an incomprehensible country and people. Russia will use this chance and everyone in the Balkans knows it. Bulgaria must be helped. A rupture in this part of the Balkans and Eastern Europe is a colossal threat to Europe.
Nah, bro.
Yeah, the majority of us who are pro eu are simply not expecting the EU to do much. Being in the western bloc is a positive in our eyes, but we are simply not cared about. Seen as a dying country with a dying people and the future... It ain't looking nice
Bulgaria should be neutral like Switzerland
@@PeterJordansonnEarly Bulgarian Revolutionaries during the times of the Ottomans did want it to be the "Switzerland of the Balkans" funnily enough.
@@PeterJordansonn Ask Belgium how well it did being "neutral" in WW2
TLDR team is on fire: covering 12 elections in one year 🔥
And then they have to do the rest of the world beyond Bulgaria too
If only they could do it with less libshit bias.
@@AJCrowley0153 Fingers crossed for Senegal, that one’s a doozy.
Regardless the country institutions still work , I think we got used to it , so one could say we have no absolute concentrated powers in one person and democracy truly is working ? 😅
@@AJCrowley0153 😂😂
Belgium s Record has been beaten
No ,we had two government one for 6 months and another one for 9 months ..
were Breaking It
So our coruption makers are better :D Brussels can learn from us D: D:
They just made a bet with Belgium 🤷🏻♀️
yh but Bulgaria isn't even close to being as divided as Belgium is
And Belgium isn’t even close to being as corrupt as Bulgaria is
@@XD-bx6eesurprisingly after the recent election it seems the new government formation in Belgium will be the smoothest one in a while. It can take more than a year to form a government in Belgium, it hasn’t even been a month and the parties are complaining that it’s not going fast enough.
Edit: or rather we have progress after less than a month which is super rare.
Always remember that the easiest way to keep hold of power in a corrupt country, is using "anti-corruption" to get rid of your corrupt competition.
This is literally what PP-DB did...
@@eeeee6717 It's what Putin, Erdogan, Lukashenko, Orban and Vucic did.
@@eeeee6717 No?
Xi Jinping did this perfectly. Laura Kövesi in Romania also.
@@eeeee6717 That's what GERB did. PPDB is truly anti corruption
You're mispronouncing pretty much anything with an "e" in it. The letter never changes its sound in Bulgarian (and possibly other Slavic languages), it's always hard "e", like in Shrek or Belgium
I don't expect a Brit or an American to pronounce words in foreign languages properly I gave up a long time ago
Gurb хахаха
The letter E changes to /i/ and even /ya/ sound in most dialects east of the Yat border in Bulgaria alone...
'E' does change depending on the dialect.
Bulgaria has entered a cycle of constant elections due to the dependency of all parties on Russia amidst an ongoing war. There are three so-called Euro-Atlantic parties, one of which facilitated the TurkStream pipeline, pivotal before Russia's war against Ukraine. Boyko Borissov, the leader of the party that has seized control of all media and institutions, has dismantled democracy. For many years, there have been no political debates or fair elections, resulting in only 30% of Bulgarians voting. This percentage is inflated by bought and corporate votes.
2 years ago before this election spiral, there were massive protests against mafia and corruption by hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians in the capital, which were not supported by EU leaders even after the police beat mothers and journalist. Instead, they legitimized the fraudulent elections and declared GERB a democratically elected party.
The grim reality is that European Union leaders support the mafia, funneling billions to destroy the economy through corporate networks. During the last elections, Ursula von der Leyen personally came to support Borissov and his party, GERB in Plovdiv. Ironically, the opposition, who were supposed to fight against the mafia, collaborated with the mafia parties to amend the Constitution, allowing GERB to form a caretaker government and secure election victory.
It’s a bleak picture: Russia and the EU appear to be aligned, and the human lives lost in the war are seemingly sacrificed for the arms industry's benefit.
Almost entirely correct with exception of the Russia thesis.
Why are people blaming russia for everything ? Like your shoe lases would be untied and you would blame the russians.
They have no influence here and its not like they are actively trying to gain any.
most of the stuff you said are lies to be honest.
Been there done that, sorry for you Bulgaria.
We had 5 elections between 2019-2023 in Israel, including during the hight of COVID19. Netanyahu was just starting his corruption trial, there was supposed to be a rotational government between Netanyahu and Ganz, but of course Netanyahu dissolved the Knesset after just a few months. Then, we had an 8 parties government with capitalists, socialists, liberals, religious zionists and islamists. We had a prime minister with 6 seats (out 120 seats in the parliament). Now Netanyahu is "leading" the worst government ever.
I'm waiting to see him in Hague.
WTF islamists are doing in ISRAELI pairlament?
It has been rough for Israel... really rough. You think he committed war crimes?
It's a dictate under Netanyahu, no different than Putin's Russia
if only the remaining 60% of the population, i.e. the Palestinians, were allowed to vote, then your account would be worth reading
This shows how bad Bulgaria politics are lol, a war torn country had less elections in more years than Bulgaria
"The bulgarian parliament is my favourite tv comedy show" -forgot who said that but its true 💀
Aethelthryth, I think he said it.
@@VicksV20 ye i think it was him
*I LIVE IN BULGARIA* they like elections - its a national pastime, you get a holiday for each one. EDIT this is incorrect - they stop alcohol sales
BUT being serious - this country runs better with NO government than the Uk under the Tories - 5% GDP growth this year, 4 new hospitals in my city alone, 2 new free universities, amazing public transport, public toilets are better than most UK 4* hotels. And its 33ºC today
Yeah, Bulgaria is also worse when it has a government :P
@@Khantia Yeah Id go along wiht that LOL
Which is that?
@@piccalillipit9211 I am Bulgarian from Burgas and what you describe is only in the Burgas region. The rest of the country looks like Mariupol before the reconstruction.
@@EmergingEcho Ive travelled the whole country and I didn't see that
As a person from Bulgaria, I can 100% say that this is pretty accurate.
As a no-Bulgarian who lives here ( Svishtov ) 16 years now , I agree
Bulgarian here; the simple truth is that Borisov is a genius at the game called Bulgarian politics. He always comes as a winner despite the situation he is in. The anti-corruption coalition are fine but you can’t win a game playing by the rules while your opponent doesn’t play by that rules.
If politics is about winning for the benefit of yourself and your cronies rather than your society and country, I guess I can't disagree.
True..
And his opponents are idiots 😂
It’s not that Borisov is so brilliant, but the others are just pathetic. Don’t get me wrong, he is cunning and is great at playing the game of thrones, however the other parties are doing so miserably that they make him look like a genius…
Game of thrones in real life is in Bulgaria.
And both Cate and Sansa work hard here for free under Little Finger. Its the Bulgarian Miracle! 0^
ahahahahahahha
Boyko Borisov is Varis and he has little birds everywhere 🐦
valar morghulis
Game of Thrones Balkan Edition
повръщам
не само ти, началник. Скапала се е работата
Bulgarian here: Nice job in covering 3 year TLDR. Just one note - we had a sub 30% voter participation at the last elections. GERB has been holding power for almost 20 years now and during that time they’ve managed to get their tentacles all over the country - judicial system, administration, public spending, foreign and internal affairs etc. Because of GERB people think that our time in the EU hasn’t been worth it because loads of EU grants ended up in GERB related mailbox companies, without the people seeing anything from that. Another issue is that a lot of people in here, especially over 40 y.o., think that our time in the EU was for the worst and blame the EU instead of corrupt practices of GERB. This gave way to nationalist parties and people who think russia is the best place in the world, while sending their kids to study in the Netherlands, buy German cars and wear Italian clothes, while keeping their savings in EUR/USD/CHF. PP were the closest we got to a fresh start, but GERB were just way too ahead in terms of having a grip on the country.
Fresh start of what? Increasing national debt? These idiots took a 9 billion loan and didn’t even say what they did with it.
You were wrong about no one forming a government after the NOV 2021 elections. PP (We continue the change) managed to form a government trough an unheard of (at least in Bulgaria) 4 party coalition with BSP, ITN and DB. Though the government was toppled after 9 months by ITN leaving the coalition due to the lift of the VETO for accession of Macedonia into the EU. So with that and the rotational government of PP+DB with GERB and support from DPS (for constitutional amendments), PPDB were the only party/coalition that was able to form governments in the last years and both times they were toppled mainly by GERB, DPS, Revival (Vazrazhdane) and ITN.
As a Bulgarian, I can simplify things for you - the GERB party's model is like Pyramid. They are always first in vote counts, because the members of the party or close people to Boyko hold different positions in the parliament/ administration/ court/ prosecutor's office and also some of these people are owners of private companies, which again are funded by the party. And if you don't vote for your party, in this case GERB, you can lose your public sector position or if you work for these private companies, they could fire you. So, in a way, we can call this corporate voting. But as a structure, it is a political pyramid.
The DPS party is ruled mainly by thieves and oligarchs. They simulate opposition to GERB, but behind the scenes are the same thing. Officially, the party works in the interest of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. The goal of the party is to win the votes of the Turkish minority and be in the parliament as a "crutch" for GERB, so whenever GERB introduces new law which brings corruption, through parliament voting, DPS supports such laws, by voting if there are insufficient vote counts. If there were sufficient vote counts, DPS acts like "opposition".
But the main issue in Bulgaria is that the prosecutor's office as a structure is self regulated by law. So, basically, they do what they want. No one can touch them. Only constitutional changes can fix things.
And what scares many corrupted Bulgarian politicians, is that if the prosecutor's office start doing their job, many, many politicians will be jailed, including Boyko, because they've been stealing the country for the last 25 years.
Small correction here - DPS do not OFFICIALLY work for the interests of the Turkish minority... It is constitutionally illegal in Bulgaria to form a political party based on Ethnicity - that would be racist.
Officially it is a party supporting the rights and freedoms of MINORITIES in Bulgaria... It also annoys me how Western media lumps in the Roma with DPS, the Roma are widely just paid votes in Bulgaria, and since many of them are Muslim they vote the way that the Turkish party (DPS) pays them to.
I agree with you otherwise, I just want to point out that we have a very decent and well thought out constitution that nobody gives a fuck about and routinely disregards when discussing politics... TLDR: DPS is an unconstitutional party IMO, they shouldn't be allowed to exist and they create ethnic tension in the country by being allowed to exist.
Yes, u are correct, DPS is not officially supporting Turks.
As a Bulgarian - this is quite a good summary, good job !
As a no-Bulgarian who lives here ( Svishtov ) 16 years now , I agree .
As a bulgarian, I can say that I got more informed by this video than our 3 national news outlets. Not that they don't report all of this, it's just that I got tired of hearing the same lies over and over again. I ain't voting again until we have 3 rounds of a stable government(ie never)
I visited Bulgaria last month on an Eastern European and Türkiye trip and I saw a lot of billboards of politicians and a local explained their elections just keep rolling on and on.
You know it's a clown fiesta when even western youtube is covering it.
This is news EU channel kid. "Western youtube" haha what the heck is that?
Westoids can't help but give their dumb opinions on everything.
И то и ние се водим западняци тъй като сме в Европа и част от ЕС. България е по-богата и по-стабилна от другите балкански страни , нз какви ги плямпа оня идиот във видеото
That’s a pretty good summary of the current situation! However there’s so much dirt that led to these events that a 9h video won’t be enough to cover it…
Great video and such a pleasure to see the chaos in Bulgarian politics explained in English and without the local bieses. Of course there are other small but crucal details, but the most important thing is that "the deep goverment" doesn't want to loose control and the majority of the population have lost hope long time ago. Such videos can be very helpful.
Thanks a lot 🙂
Amazing short and sweet, to the point synopsis of the political picture in Bulgaria - thank you! I have been apolitical for close to two decades, and do not participate in any political processes, including watching news or related TV shows. Decided to click on this vid randomly, and you literally caught me up with the political landscape here at home in less than 10 minutes. Kudos to ya!
Very good summary of the situation in the last couple of years in Bulgaria.
Agree cause in 10 years might not exist anymore which im sad its my country but politicians are dictators in my country
Todor Zhivkov actually ruled Bulgaria between 1956 to 1989, but you can say he executed total power after 1962. Still, if you take the 1956 as his start, Zhivkov is the third longest ruling Bulgarian after Tsar Peter I (927-969) and Tsar Ioan Alexander (1331-1371). And his rule was actually not bad to the people, if you accept the realities of the Eastern Block and socialist satellite alignment that our country had towards the USSR. Most repressions of the regime were done prior to Zhivkov coming to power, and this is a fact worth to be noted.
Julian Barnes' book "The Porcupine " is based on him. Very funny and prophetic.
day without political instability in EU is day wasted
Some EU countries are pretty stable. Still, much better democratic instability than autocratic stability.
@@soundscape26 Finally someone said it.
@@soundscape26 the far right in germany always says the government is chaos, it ruins the country. man they keep shut their eyes to make sure they dont compare it to other countries around. the far right in germany wants this country to break like the other countries around. just check france, no need to look at even smaller countries.
@@soundscape26that moronic view is why democracy is declining. Its participants have that mentality that its some untouchable religion that people should accept regardless of its consequence.
Please wish and try to achieve democratic stability, this democratic age has existed for
Democracy by its very nature isn't really that stable because it allows public views from all sides, which is always tricky to get them all working well together, but it's the best system we have compared to the alternatives when it come to giving the people a voice, but with so many voice, stability was never going to be its strong point, but compared to the alternatives, it's a far better system.
The only real flaws I see is that there needs to be more transparency on everything governments are doing with the voters, basically, there's too much of a disconnect from the voters and the ones in powers and it's creating a divide of mistrust, in other words, if governments actually listen to the people and actually did what they wanted, things would be a lot calmer in the west now, and this is a western thing with the far right in Europe, to what's going on in the US, the pattern is the same, lack of trust from voters in the system.
Let's hope for peace, stability, and a just, stable government in Bulgaria.
Sadly not going to happen.
Yeah, I am betting more money on a major military conflict in the region, that a stable government anytime soon. Sadly, the situation is completely hopeless.
The best government is no government, because it can't ruin us to the same extent.
Quick update from today. New elections are coming in this October on your local cinema ... Bulgaria - Prive that anarchy is possible
Shit ! The'll close the pubs again . 😅
As a Bulgarian anarchist I sure hope so, anarchy is infinitely preferable to this continual political circus.
Is it an anarchy when there are still laws present? I don't think so. 😂
Is election/political burnout a thing?
For sure
Simeon III should have put a referendum for an absolute monarchy...
Clearly
@@mayukhmitra5819 He had his turn as PM,I'm sick of searching for the next ''messiah'' that will fix things.
That's called having a declining number of voters
OMG BULGARIA MENTIONED 🦅🦅🦅🦅
🐻🐻🐻🐻
I never thought l'd hear such a thing as a "bulgarian mafia" in my lifetime, but here we are.
My condolences to the bulgarian people for having to suffer through this political impasse.
oh the mafia issue if pretty big here, Bulgaria is one of the safest countries out there for the average day-to-day person, but if you decide to start a business here, then shit can get real with mafia
Mafia & criminality have been one of the main issues in Bulgaria post-Communism.
Bulgarian Mafia have been a thing since 1991, they work mainly under a group called TIM - who in turn are connected to Multigrup outta Russia.
Thank you for covering this. We feel hopeless
Not even Portugal is that unstable
Compared to any post-Soviet state Portugal is a stable nation.
@@diogorodrigues747 Post-Soviet refers to countries that were part of the USSR, from what I know. Bulgaria wasn't. But even so, I think the Baltics are prob doing better than Portugal, especially Estonia.
And if you're talking about post-Communist countries in general, I think Czech Republic & Slovenia have surpassed Portugal.
In terms of just political stability, a lot of countries can be better than a rich one, even if they are poor. Romania has been very stable politically in these past tumultous years, for example. 🙂
@@dyawr Some countries are doing great (I think Estonia is an example for all of Europe, for example), but most of them are sh*tty countries infested with corruption, oligarchs and vatniks.
Hey! Could you make a video about Romanian politics some day? A lot has been happening these years, now after the last EU and local elections (which took place on the same day) accusations of voter fraud have been flying around as a record number of votes were annulled, in addition to many other scandals.
Omg, spare me. *Romania has been stable for the past few years.* And actually doing well. There haven't been any serious accusations of election fraud, just a loud candidate in a place or two, upset about losing.
Can you ppl *stop* putting our country down every chance you get & reinforcing this horrible negative stereotypes about it, that often have *nothing* to do with reality? This is nothing but an inferiority complex in Romanian society, that fuels other people's prejudice. 🙄
I think your view of corruption in Bulgaria is somewhat false. Corruption is endemic in every aspect of Bulgarian life and this is just reflected in politics. After living in Bulgaria for 7 years, I would say that the basic message is, "I want everything but pay nothing and especially if I can find a way not to pay." Bulgarians completely know the situation but don't really want things to change if it affects their pockets.
That's like the working class in the UK then.
Very true...
Factually incorrect statement. Did you personally ask every single Bulgarian before making such a bold claim? There are plenty of people that want things to change and you're simply spitting in their faces by refusing to acknowledge they exist.
To be fair to my fellow Bulgarians they did want things to change, which is why they put a whole bunch of reformist parties in parliament. Its the failure of those reformists to make any sort of functional government that has us in this dead end
@@i.m.3940wym? Of course there are people who want change, but most of the people are ok with bribing cops while complaining how corrupt everything is. Corruption is a deal you are not part of as they say...
ITN isn't precisely Euro-skeptic. Or at least their leader isn't. Although they do seem to have started shifting more to the right as time passes.
It is becoming more and more so by the day. During the election campaign ITN said for example that they oppose giving more military aid to Ukraine. Oh, and they also joined ECR in the EU. ITN is turning into a new IMRO, a more moderate version of the far right parties Revival and Velichie.
They were always right, but being patriotic doesn't necessarily mean Euro-Scetic or pro-Russian.
ITN are the reason why we need to have 10% instead of the current 4% vote barrier to enter in the parliament. Utterly useless party that have brought nothing to the table except cheap populism and dumb decisions that followed horrible consequences. When they were in coalition with PP they had 4 ministers: 1 exiled all sponsors from the sport venues, 1 speculated and raised the price of electricity to the point where many factories need it to temporarily close and got indebt, 1 shutdown all major infrastructure projects and proudly said that there won't be starting as long as he is minister and finally, 1 that was so incompetent as minister of foreign affairs that when the war in Ukraine started she didn't have any idea how to bring our citizen back to the country and few sailors were stuck in Mariupol on the battlefield.
ITN is a populist party that exists only based on the pop-folk singer and a TV showman. Their voter's political taste is that of a man who will invest in 3in1 power tool to start his professional job, just because it's "seen on TV".
@@skillerbg Well given that Slavi literaly said in a french interview that he whant for Bulgaria to be rulled by the EU ( an EU that is an united country ) which just means he dosnt whant us to be a free country like Jivkov whnated us to be part of the USSR.
He just lost the lefth voters so he turned right.
You failed to mention there was a reformist government from January to June in 2022.
Could you do a video on Belgium’s federal and regional elections of June 9th and the upcoming municipal elections of October?
You've done some Good research! Well done 👏🏻
*I LIVE IN BULGARIA* dont let the political situation fool you - things work VERY well here - I found a pot hole last week - reported it on the city app. 2 days later I got a message and a picture to show they had fixed it.
Power is VERY devolved here - the national government only deal with truly national issues like defence and trade deals. My city is Burgas - look it up and tell me if it looks like a UK city
burgas is really an exception, I cant understand why but we call it the "most european bulgarian city"
@@darkoparko6685 - I have not travelled since before the pandemic - but I would not say its that different from Plovdiv, Valiko Tarnovo, Varna. Maybe it is and I have not noticed??
No, it doesn't look like a UK city.
@@ozymandiasultor9480 My rent is €150 on a beach front apartment.
What do you mean? How could it look like a UK city when it looks better than London?
Great video! 👍🏼 Very informative and well-made!
politics just about everywhere is crazy nowadays
i pity the future history teacher preparing their unit on the 2020s
Nah they will simplified the after 2020 stuff
Suffered through is very accurate, it is tremendously tedious every other month elections...
A thing not mentioned in the video but I think is very important - the EU are shooting themselves in the foot and are fully responsible for the rise in EU scepticism. Firstly not only the failure to address corruption in Bulgaria but Ursula von der Leyen endorsed Borisov and GERB in the last election in June which annoyed a lot of pro-EU Bulgarians and also gave more ammunition to anti-EU parties, just so she can secure a few more votes in the EU parliament.
I think a more correct way of saying this is that EU successfully failed to address corruption, which is a very intentional move. They have no interest in removing corruption in Bulgaria or in the EU. If corruption is removed they will all fall down so it is not in their interest to remove it. Everything is by design.
@@trickshady2 As a staunch believer in the idea of united Europe, I tend to disagree. Bulgaria had two governments, albeit short in the past few years that showed, at least to me that Bulgaria can be governed in a different fashion. Without fear, without dealings behind closed doors. You can criticize Denkov and before that Petkov for mistakes they have made, but education wise, way of speaking are light years ahead of Borisov ever was. For the first time in years I did not cringe at Bulgarian politicians side by side with our international partners and for the first time in 12 years the prime minister was not a clown, and for me that was breath of fresh air. It's all right to offer feedback, and I can agree the EU has a lot of issues, but at the end of the day it's politics everywhere, there are bad apples and there are good apples but, but von der Leyen proved herself to be very much a bad apple, just so she can stay in power. It's called basic hygiene and she does not have it. Honestly, I am quite disappointed she stooped so low just to score 1 or 2 MEP.
Very well explained , thank you for showing to the world what is happening
As I've said for years we cannot expect a different outcome when the politicians at play are the same from 15 years ago
I am bulgarian. And i have to say this is a pretty spot on video. Good job!
What a mess!
My partner is Bulgarian & some (most) of the things she tells me about Bulgarian politics blows my mind 🤯
it`s even worse 😉
Living in Bulgaria has become beyond depressing. Every aspect of this country is beyond corrupt. I work as a doctor and sadly even healthcare is beyond repair and in need of an ground up reform. It's gotten to the point where It might just be better for most people to jump ship to west europe.
It’s not even less corrupt in Western Europe, we just have more money because of a larger public sector.
Градинката на съседа винаги изглежда по-хубава
@@ivanpetrov5258 Твърде вярно. А те са също толкова корумпирани, просто лежат на стари лаври.
well, try NHS
As a Bulgarian i must say you did a pretty good job explaning the situation here i really appreciate it !!!
Man this was actually depressing to watch, even though I'm not From Bulgaria and I've been rather ignorant of Bulgarian politics until now.
I mean just having a known mafia oligarch guy be a prominent figure in politics... and having one of the most powerful politicians be verifiably corrupt and persecutable (though the latter isn't unique even amongst more powerful nations cough Trump cough)
Yeah our politicians are all thieves and mafia. Everyone
Eastern Europeans:
"First time?"
As dumb qs it might sound in reality Boiko is one of the least corrupt politicians we have. When the Reformists came to power corruption increased and the standard of livong dropped A LOT.
Trumps, Bidens, Clintons, Bushes, Pellosies. There are so many clans in the US politics that are no different than mafia families. The difference is that US is rich and Bulgarians are poor so that's why americans don't care.
Congrats !! You did your job very well! Nobody could explai ln it better ❤ Thank you!
The war destroyed every hope of stable coalition in the opposition, because a lot of parties and people in general in Bulgaria are rusophilic anti EU, nationalist, populist, conservative. Of course there was devide because of ever existing problems like the grean deal, liberal policies and the frictions with Macedonia, but that was manageable. The whole crisis is because the whole nation has to deside whether we wanna stay close friend with Russia or not?
It's like the seasons at this point. It just rolls by.
Well fuck, at least they have elections.
The results would be the same if we hadn't elections. It looks like we have the right to vote (officialy), but in the end of the day the mafia is manipulating the vote.
@@opushead Well fuck.
Like Russia?
@@markdouglas8073 No, these are actually free elections.
@@dyawr 60% of the votes were either corporate, bribed or government workers and their families and friends who always go and vote for the people who gave them their positions (aligned with the mob-parties until death basically). The elections will only be "free" when turnout is much much higher (only 32% of the eligible voters actually went to the polls) and that will never happen. It's both sick and self-sustaining, a modern form of feudalism.
Honestly this is pretty accurate so job well done. Everything is chaotic, there are new parties emerging, turning out to be related to the big players once again so its one big circus..
FINALLY A BULGARIAN VIDEO!!!
Good video, it explains to foreigners how tragic our politics are. Some additional things are: Borissov was arrested and spent a night in prison, but of course the BG law system allowed him to find his way out of a court case; MRF (ДПС) is basically a Turkish party which is illegal by constitutional law and yet it is somehow allowed and they never get sanctioned; Peevski is not just a mafia kingpin, he has been sanctioned by the US based on the Magnitsky Act, yet he is somehow not just not imprisoned, he's one of our top politicians...
This is a really good summary. Only two points I want to add:
- The new "Greatness" party surprised everyone when they got in parliament, as nobody in the media has talked about them before, but it turns out they had promoted themselves hardcore in RUclips, TikTok, Telegram, etc. They are a very weird mix of a pro-Russian party, combined with a Ponzi scheme type business, some people call them a cult and possibly also have a small paramilitary squad as well. There are a bunch of pro-Russian influencers attached to them as well.
- There is also talk that the current president will resign, create a party and come as a savior from the chaos. Which is a bit worrying, as he seems as possibly a bit authoritarian and pro-Russian, and is a very good political operator overall, has a bit of Orban vibes to him.
Velichie (Greatness) has already split in half so that was a big LUL in our political system.
We need someone to be like Orban what's wrong and worrying about that i can't understand people they don't want GERB-SDS DPS to be leaders but they are worried about Rumen Radev you can't even put up your own mind yikes. At least the leader will put his country and nation before NATO Europe Alliance and won't even agree with them Orban is a example how leader should act not like our politicians to ass lick for money
@@alexandernaydenov7539 Well Radev worked clolsley whit NATO before and he but the curent leaders of PP in power and from their leaked info we know they where put in power by the Americans, which to me means an USA person ( probably a fromer or curent NATO person ) who had some links to Radev told him to put them in power. So really Radev either tries to play bouth sides for something better or he does it all for himself. Given that we have so much coruption here i doubt everyone, but you can judge for yourself.
Well, according to my opinion as someone who is not Bulgarian, but live there for more than 15 years, these are the reason:
1. The President Radev and Bojko Borisov - both very corrupted and sick for power
2. Mass migration due to having no progress in the country. BG is still the poorest country in the EU
3. Terrible foreign policy, especially towards the neighbors.
4. The economy is not doing well so people are losing hope.
5. The international political factors have different interests, especially because BG still maintains close relations with Russia where among the other the President has significant role
6. Political Parties are not offering modern and promising solutions.
Bulgarian names are hard 😅❤
And so are bg politics 😂😢
Bulgarian names sound cool. Icelandic names...now those are hard. It's like in Iceland they pick names by letting a cat walk across a keyboard.
@@dimitardimitrov8449 Not as hard as you might think. Most come from the biblical names Theodor, Paul and so fort. The thing about surenames is, the ov on the end means literally "of or from" in eglish so when you hear Borisov for instance it means that the person is "from the family of Boris" :) The pronounciation is harder as we have hard R opposed to english speaking nations like Spanians do.
@@chiari4833 i said it because of his pronouciation. I am bulgarian my self and it was entertaining to hear his pronouciation.
@@dimitardimitrov8449 И аз така, друже! 😆
Some details are missing, but in general, it is a very good review
Lack of stability is why most of our population left..
how people cannot leave we have production of 10% rest coming from the world our economy is in worst state ever
No they didn't... they left because salaries are crap and our economy is uncompetitive... and its gotten worse since we joined the EU.
@@zszemptycorrect. The economy fucking blows and it will not be fixed in the next 20 years
Nonsense. They left because salaries are bad
Very well explained.
Brits: "British politics is chaos, I wish I lived somewhere else."
Somewhere else:
The biggest issue with Bulgaria is the total birth collapse. There are almost no new generation in Bulgaria. Population fall keeps getting worse and worse making them weaker. Also, Bulgaria has almost half a million Turks and they live in the south so what is stopping future Turkey from taking that land sort of what they did in Cyprus.
Bulgaria is absolutely stable. We just don't have a regular government which is not a big deal.
Thanks for explaining my own country's politics for me mate
a face made for prison, almost as bad as von der Leyen's ordering of billions of big pharma juice via her private mobile phone
Thanks for the recap. As a Bulgarian I honestly can't keep up with this shite...
heh heh "pee pee party" huhuhu
Teelo , "Prodaljzavame Promyanata" is too hard to pronounce by an English speaker. 😅 So, it's coming the "pee-pee" (пиш-пиш) party. They happened to be bigger crooks than everyone else before them, by the way.
Peak humour
If we look at Belgium, The Netherlands (sometimes) the US and others we see an inability to form a political consensus because people are viewing the world in very different ways. I don't know how to fix that.
I dont care. Im proud to be Bulgarian 🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬 we always survive from 681 to this day. Наздраве юнаци 🙂
As a Bulgarian, im gonna admit that this is very accurate!
You never want to see your country in the news...
I'm a Bulgarian who needed this video in order to understand what is going on in my own country. And btw I was in tears after the last votes. I feel hopeless and I feel weak as a citizen too. It literally feels like nothing can be changed for good and things are only going worse. Just try to imagine the level of manipulation and misinformation we are dealing with - I needed this video from a foreign creator in order to understand what has been going on since I've been voting (I've literally been voting since 2021).
Most of our problems come from external pressure by our so called partners in EU, NATO and our enemy Russia (last one had always driven corruption in Bulgaria). There was some sort of a government from January 2022 till June 2022, however EU was putting pressure on Bulgaria to cave for N Macedonia veto and that made one of the 4 political parties withdraw from the coalition ... another election. Then there was a preasure from US for a new stable government and two parties that should have never form a government together did it so US is happy and Ukraine can get some weapons and ammo, so thank you USA for fu***** up our country.
You have lost your mind to think Mariya Gabriel, an euro commissioner from GERB (EPP), with which the last regular government was possible, has anything to do with USA.
@@JkaBG, where did I mentioned the puppet Maria? I said that USA pushed Continue the Change to go in coalition with GERB so we can sent weapons to Ukraine.
Just a normal political process for a democracy, don't see anything 'insane', and for sure prefer that, to Russia or North Korea.
God forbid that we elect a new government in 25 minutes.
Guess what - didn't.
It another rounds of elections baby!
@@flioink Thank the Lord xD
very accurate ,bravo !
Israel: I can relate
You can't - you are an apartheid state where 60% of the population isn't even allowed to vote. Anything you say isn't worth shit until you fix that.
The thing is GERB is not right-wing per se, more of a corrupt centrist party. However, right-wing parties are gaining more and more prominence, sadly. And as for the Harvard grads had less linguistic capabilities than the minorities, only mounted our debt and embarrassed us even further... MRF as u called it - DPS, with Peevski on top is ... disgusting, but this is mainly because the voter activity has dropped and only the paid voters go to the polls. If we had 70-80% activity - neither GERB, nor DPS would have been so ahead in the race. After 6 elections in 3 years, following more than a year of vigorous protests - people are disheartened and disengaging.