When Boyko Borisov became the new Prime Mister of Bulgaria in 2009, could everything change in Bulgarian politics? Could a Bulgarian politician really have the ability to carry out the reforms that were needed?

Past history said no because of the following reasons. Firstly could someone be found who did not have the " Balkans mentality" and could think out of the box? Also was there anyone who was in public life without a murky past?

Boyko's popularity and rise was meteoric, he quickly got himself in a position of power for all to see..... Mayor of Sofia. He banged heads together and got things done on a day to day basis that gave him a very high profile of the " no nonsense leader" who was tough on all things and seemed above the normal corruption of politics and public life. But other than being flamboyant and shrewd, did he have the political astute and manipulative skills that would be needed, to drag a country that had suffered stagnation and corruption on a enormous scale, into the real world and at last make Bulgarians feel proud of it?

Immediately after winning the elections an initial strategy and PR exercise was implemented to show the people that the new government was different from the past ones and meant business straight away by arresting as many of the known criminals as possible. Their philosophy was to cut off the head of the serpent and then the remaining parts die, but you must have the capacity to accomplish the first task, but with past history police results on gathering evidence etc that was not encouraging.

I'm convinced that with a new American Ambassador in Sofia who was instructed to help the new governments efforts in the fight against crime and corruption, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry had new eyes and ears for their surveillance and high profile arrests were made very fast. But why they did not lead to any charges or convictions?

After a few months when the dust had settled down most of the suspects who were arrested have been released without charge, with the prosecutors saying ...... where was the evidence to bring them to trial? In other words nothing had changed in the police intelligence system and the status que remains. Even some of the judiciary would not be needed to help the arrested if they were charged.

Boyko had made a fatal error and did not follow other politicians examples who had similar problems with tackling crime out of control... start at the bottom, have zero tolerance and work your way up to the " big fish", not the other way around! So the first spectacular strategy has failed and the people are now less than impressed, casting the new government no better than the previous ones. This could mean the return of the other parties or even worse new ones and Bulgaria's benefits from joining the EU / international reputation lost, along with so many other opportunities for everyone.

Lately Boyko has continued his charm offensive with the world, the fiscal policy is under control (at the expense of the poor and vulnerable), the leaders of the Parliament are going back to school to learn adding up, the war of words between the President and Boyko continues, and the ordinary Bulgarian people are getting poorer, less cared for and say they were better off under a totalitarian regime.

That last statement is a damming indictment of the present Bulgarian government and the progress since the collapse of the Stalinist rule!

Keith Gregory

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