SLIDING INTO UNBRIDLED POPULISM

As Bulgaria is heading for a seventh snap election in just three years, two events mark the month of August, which is traditionally seen as a holiday season for working Bulgarians. Whilst Sofia has been going through repeated heat waves, the Constitutional Court judges repealed most of the much-hailed but apparently ill-thought-out Constitutional reforms passed last year in a rare show of agreement between Boyko Borisov's GERB, the DPS, or Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and the PP-DB-DSB, or Changes Continued-Yes Bulgaria-Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria. One of the leaders of the latter, Hristo Ivanov, who had spearheaded the legal reforms, subsequently resigned following the heavy losses his party suffered in the June 2024 election. The reforms, which few ordinary Bulgarians understand, were sent to Constitutional Court to probe whether they do not contravene this country's basic law.

According to the court, they do. Severely limiting the powers of the head of state to appoint caretaker governments, making the Chief Prosecutor, the Bulgarian equivalent of the US and British Attorney General, more accountable is, the Constitutional Court ruled, the business of a grand rather than a regular National Assembly.

Predictably, the court's ruling caused a significant media uproar. Talking heads of various shades and hues appeared on the various TV channels to either criticise the court for what they saw as a flagrant backtracking on Bulgaria's "Euro-Atlantic path," or to slam Hristo Ivanov and his associates for pushing through badly-conceived pieces of legislation.

Both sides have a right. Harnessing the Chief Prosecutor, whose powers have remained largely unchanged since the times of Communism, is necessary and must be done sooner rather than later. But limiting the powers of the president to appoint caretaker governments backfired as soon as it was introduced: Bulgaria risked not getting an interim prime minister at all because no one qualified for the job under the new rules was willing or capable to do it.

While the failed Constitutional Changes generally do not affect the lives of rank-and-file Bulgarians with voting rights, the other piece of legislation passed by the National Assembly not only affects Bulgarians of all ages but is also seen as a political hot potato that few outside the extreme populist sector will be able to handle correctly.

At the instigation of the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane, or Revival, of extremist Kostadin Kostadinov, the Bulgarian parliament banned sexual education in Bulgarian schools that differed from the "traditional norms of established sexes." In a country that does not recognise LGBTQ+ unions, where gay couples cannot adopt children, and where the overwhelming public sentiment to anything that even remotely smacks of wokeism, is unanimously negative, providing even information and background in Bulgarian schools is now banned.

The legislation was supported by most parties in the current National Assembly. Some MPs for the PP-DB-DSB, who usually introduce themselves as progressivist and pro-Western intellectuals, sat on their hands during the ballot. Many simply did not bother to turn up.

Critics were quick to flap down the anti-LGBTQ+ law as being modelled after similar laws enacted in Putin's Russia. But that is not enough to convince ordinary Bulgarians that nothing "unusual" will happen to their kids at school. The very traditional, almost patriarchal Bulgarian society that has failed to reform itself in the 35 years of democracy has been additionally exposed to anti-woke propaganda in the past at least 10 years. For precisely this reason Bulgaria is not a signatory to the Istanbul convention for the protection of rights of women and children. It is not because Bulgarians like to batter their wives more than, say, Germans do but because cunning politicians of various inclinations thrust down the throats of their voters all sorts of nonsense about "forcible gay marriages" and "genderism."

The new anti-LGBTQ+ legislation will certainly be used as a cosh to bludgeon political opponents with ahead of the next snap election. Predictably, this will be a nasty one.

Radan Kanev, a rightwing EMP for the DSB, commented that in light of the anti-LGBTQ+ law the term "Euro-Atlantic," which has been espoused by GERB, the DPS and so on, has lost its meaning. He is right. There is nothing Euro-Atlantic (whatever that means) in GERB's and DPS's movement against basic human rights. But Kanev is also wrong. His associates in the PP-DB-DSB are equally to blame. They failed, repeatedly, to make the "Euro-Atlantic" position on the issue clear to the general public. And they did not even attempt to convince that human rights in an "Euro-Atlantic" society have no alternative.

Against this background the findings of an Eurobarometer poll about the democratic inclinations in EU member states appears only logical. Bulgaria is at the bottom of it. Nine percent of those polled say democracy, fundamental rights and the supremacy of law are unimportant, up from 6 percent in 2019. As many as 12 percent of all Bulgarians are willing to play down the supremacy of law, up from 3 percent on four years earlier.

Bulgarians seem to be critical not only about the validity of this country's domestic agencies, but also about the efficiency of courts and law enforcement in other countries. Just 6 percent firmly believe justice is being dealt out to everyone in Bulgaria on an equal basis.

Twenty-four percent of those polled say they know "nothing" about the EU's fundamental rights. In this Bulgaria is just ahead of Greece (28 percent).