Bulgaria's Socialist Prime Minister, Sergey Stanishev, gave last week the start of the election campaign called "Bulgaria Reloaded".

The target of the Socialist Party's campaign are the young people of Bulgaria.

The Party's national youth tour consists of a large truck and a Ferrari that are going to visit 40 cities and towns around the country from May 14 until July 3.

The campaign is headed by the BSP Secretary, Kiril Dobrev, and includes young socialists, the most successful Bulgarian GT pilot, Plamen Kralev, who loaned his own "Ferrari", as well as the popular Bulgarian house/electro band Deep Zone Project.

Some of the young people who undertook the campaign project have traveled in person to the famous Italian track "Francia Corta" to practice in reality refueling the fast car and changing the tires.

The "symbols of Bulgaria", plastered all over the Ferrari, aim at promoting the local products, resorts, books and music. The track stands for Bulgaria's European way, the beautiful race car stands for the Bulgarian motherland, and the pit box team are the thousands of young people who care about it.

At least the campaign's mastermind, Kiril Dobrev, says so, convinced the Formula 1 idea will attract young people to socialist politics and help them realize in the practice the meaning of the word "reloading" as "imparting new power".

Stanishev, himself, is going to take the wheel from Kralev and press the Ferrari's pedal in the final stretch of the "Bulgaria Reloaded" Tour, right before it returns to Sofia on July 3.

Our Premier certainly enjoys driving. Tram cars of fast cars - it does not much matter. Some might remember that in November Stanishev was featured in a nostalgic video clip as the driver of an old Sofia tram car.

Kiril Dobrev was again the author of the ingenious ad, aimed at advertising the 47th congress of the Socialist Party. The clip was largely ridiculed at the time by many from the public and the media.

The move from the tram car to the Ferrari is understandable providing the goal is to attract young people. It is well known the firm Socialist supporters most often walk, ride crowded trams, even horse carriages, or, in the best case scenario, half-century-old Soviet cars.

A red Ferrari, symbolizing a country with deteriorating roads and poor infrastructure, is, honestly, mind-boggling, but its suits well the leaders of the "oldest" party in Bulgaria, so they say, and their long-running tradition of enjoying the luxury of the "decaying" capitalism.

Stanishev's predecessors, including some of his family members, preached against the materialism of the capitalist world, but lived in "residencies" with pools, home theaters and ball rooms. While the common Bulgarians were building the "bright communist future," crammed in panel apartments, placed on long waiting lists for the coveted Soviet "Lada" "Moskvitch" or the German engineering miracle called "Trabant", the Politburo children and grandchildren were flying down the still empty Sofia streets in fast, western-made cars.

Their "red" heirs certainly keep the tradition alive.

This summer, when spending a weekend in the picturesque mountain town of Tryavna, I happened to be in the same hotel with several of the highest ranking socialist party members, including former Interior Minister, Rumen Petkov. They were delegates to the annual celebration on the Buzlduzha peak, dedicated to the 117th anniversary of the Buzludzha Congress, which marked the beginning of the socialist movement in Bulgaria.

Their evening party at the restaurant involved red attire, Russian and Soviet songs, lots of food washed down with plenty of liquor, followed by dancing on tables and stumbling down in ravines, while the hotel parking lot was swamped with BMWs, Mercedes', quite a few convertibles, proudly boasting the national Bulgarian flag and a bunnch of red flags.

Certainly plenty of communist symbolic to go around and spoil the weekend.

It does, for sure, seem difficult, if not impossible, to reload a party with such long-running traditions. But the lucrative promise of a fast car, along with a share of the stolen European funds, could maybe "drive" some young people to join in.

Imagine their disappointment when, left standing in the old tram car, they spot Stanishev & Co fly by in the red Ferrari.

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