HYPOCRISY AD INFINITUM

The video, shot in the National Assembly, shows an young MP for the ruling Changes Continued political party who takes up the rostrum to make a statement to the house and then... forgets what he was about to do.

Radoslav Vasilev, an MP for Radnevo (in southern Bulgaria), starts speaking in accented Bulgarian about the energy crisis. He makes a reference to the "past 12 years," then stutters. Then he picks up again with a few incoherent words, then stutters again. "I meant... I wanted to say... Sorry," Vasilev spews out and leaves the stage under the unabashed laughter of Boyko Borisov's GERB MPs.

It was a sorry scene showing that being 29 years of age and having studied economy is not enough to make you a politician or, indeed, a good public speaker. Changes Continued should probably think about brushing up their public speech skills and employ good media advisers if they do not want to become the butt of jokes, which Radoslav Vasilev already did.

...while GERB's brass gleefully boo him 

The joke was not the uncouth MP for Changes Continued, however. The real joke were those gloating GERB MPs who laughed at Vasilev and ridiculed him. Anyone, even the most experienced politician, can err in front of a hostile audience. Those same GERB MPs had no trouble kowtowing to their Boyko Borisov with his outrageous outburst in the course of 12 years. They did not mind his on- and off-stage pronouncements about the former speaker of parliament, whom he billed a "stupid c*nt from Kardzhali," nor his animosity to President Rumen Radev, who according to the former prime minister needed a "pi*zle up his a*s." They did not dare question the gold ingots in the former prime minister's bedroom. They never ridiculed the burly strongman who administered "small beef steaks" to a police dog – speaking at a child murder scene. And they just looked the other way when Boyko Borisov referred to God as "the big boss."

There have been plenty of instances of this kind of double standards under Boyko Borisov's GERB. Booing down the 29-year-old Changes Continued MP indicated GERB's hypocrisy may be just ad infinitum.