> Some 10,000 mostly elderly people from all over the country
> marched in central Sofia to protest against poverty and what they called
> widespread corruption within Bulgaria's center-right UDF government.
I only watched it on TV so maybe 40 smth's also belong to the "elderly"
group. The "mostly elderly from all over the country" is the stereotype of
the hard-core red voters (old, conservative/reactionary, provincial
free-boarders).
> ``When it came to power more than three years ago, the UDF
> pledged well-being for everyone,'' Georgi Parvanov, leader of the
> ex-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party, told the rally.
> ``Instead, it brought poverty, unemployment, corruption, and
> managed to secure well-being only for a tiny circle of people close to
> the UDF elite.''
True. But they played the IMF/WB/EU game well (as good as puppets get, that
is). They behaved as required during the Kosovo crisis (the situation then
and the protests then which were NOT led or piggy-backed by the then-Left
carried much more risk for the UDF than the protest so far now). In other
words, they won't go gentle into the elections night, and whoever runs the
country will be in extremely dire straits, internally and externally, and
intra-coalitionally. It'd better be a coalition but we don't have a good
record on that account.
> The UDF government led by Ivan Kostov came to power in 1997 and
> is now on its way to becoming Bulgaria's first post-Communist cabinet to
> serve a full four-year term.
> Even opponents recognize that the government has succeeded by
> securing macroeconomic stability and winning an invitation to start
> European Union membership talks.
> But low living standards and media reports of shadowy deals
> involving UDF officials have eroded public support.
Er, another way of looking at this is that lack of any change for the
better, along with a 19th c. line ab politicians in general ("they are all
bastards, anyway") has succeeded in effectively 'passivising' voters (i.e.
extremely low turn-up at elections; symbolic protest against 'em all by
non-voting). If that trend persists, we'll have probably a marginal victory
for a left coalition with (the less voters, the more) trumps in the Movement
for Rights and Freedom. And if this happens, whoever_gets_to_play won't be
able to do much, especially with the predictable (?) less friendly attitude
of the current Big Brothers. It's a zug-zwang situation.
> The rally was the first joint action by the Socialists and three
> small social-democratic parties that have recently set up a grouping
> called New Left.
> The coalition is expected to be the biggest challenge to the UDF
> in parliamentary election due between April and June 2001.
Well, we'll live to see; in chess terms, this New Left move is the
equivalent of castling so all the game's ahead. I don't think they have
issued anything that might pass for an agenda yet (Chavdar? Nice to see
another dot from bg here! :o)