Rosen Plevneliev, believed to be the frontrunner in Bulgaria's 2012 presidential race, has said that, judging by the people he meets on a daily basis, the population is not  really interested in the conflict that erupted in the southern  village of Katunitsa.

According to the presidential runner of center-right party GERB, it is only media that keep asking questions about the unrest.

"What people care about is whether what our government has done over the last two years is only the foundation that we plan to build upon. They ask about agriculture, incomes, jobs, regional projects," Plevneliev, a former Regional Development Minister, stated.

Congratulations, Mr. Plevneliev, on the masterful command of poetic license!

Explaining himself out of critical situations through grand infrastructure talk is a longtime favorite rhetorical device deployed by Prime Minister Borisov.

But why keep calling the spade a non-spade, or denying the existence of the spade, or silently ignoring its conspicuous presence?

The truth is that the events in Katunitsa showed Bulgaria in the grip of huge problems of ethnic, social, political, criminal, moral and psychological origin.

Tensions were unleashed after the 23 September  death of a 19-year-old boy ran over by a mini-bus allegedly driven by a henchman of Roma clan chief Kiril Rashkov, aka Tsar Kiro.

Then residents of Katunitsa gathered to protest against the self-appointed Roma tsar's wild impunity   and demand that Rashkovi be expelled.

Then Rashkov's luxury estate was set ablaze by a group of football hooligans who had come to support the locals.

The incident was followed by three days of protests in major cities across the country, with hundreds of Bulgarians arrested on charges of hooliganism or incendiary speech, a state-of-war-like police presence on the streets and seriously alarmed, though battle-ready Roma in the ghettos.

The mobs of protesters were driven by strong, yet widely ranging sentiments, with some shouting anti-Roma slogans and rallying against the 'unjust' social benefits extended to that specific ethnic group, others ranting about Roma crime, still others  going on sheer destruction sprees,  and a large proportion fuming over Bulgaria being a failed state.

The turmoil played into the hands of a number of political parties, with far-right nationalist Ataka blaring about the Roma scare and opposition parties exposing failed social policies and the Roma clan leader 's traditionally un-taxable and undocumented wealth generated through largely undisturbed underhand  activities.

A number of issues that should have been accounted for were left glaringly unaccounted for.

In fact, they still are.

Which is why journalists keep asking, instead of moving on to the more comfortable issues of road construction.

Which is what ordinary citizens do not do, according to Plevneliev.

It is not over yet, it is dangerously not over yet.

Playing with "lack of interest" is playing with fire, forget the pre-election times.

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