This would be the first Europe-wide EP elections that Bulgaria will participate in. One would think that we as a new member would be eager to influence the European politics. Think again. Julien Frisch quotes statistics that nearly 50% of the Bulgarians have decided not to vote. Is the glass half full or half empty?
Lets see the first time turnouts in the last EU elections, which as we know saw 10 new members. In 2004 their average turnout was about 40%. Malta had 83.37% on one end of the scale, but Slovakia had 16.96% on the other. In that perspective the 30% of Bulgarians that have confirmed their dedication to vote is rather good. However, this is just statistics. What’s behind it?
In Bulgaria people don’t have faith in the system. Most people don’t see an alternative in the opposition either. This causes a sort of a mass political depression in our people - we don’t see a point in doing anything. We either don’t vote or cast a negative vote against whoever is in charge at the moment. In this way several new parties have managed to climb on top of the public disapproval and received a big support in the last few elections.
When we joined the EU, we decided that the better organization and rules in it would help us fix our current problems. In this line of thoughts, one would still expect that people would storm the voting booths in hope that their vote will weight more that it does back home and have a real impact. Or maybe not.
When you ask Bulgarians about what they think of the EU, many would answer that it is a union that offers many benefits to our country. When they are asked however, what is their personal role in that union, most of them are confused. We don’t perceive the EU as a union, but as the thing that will fix the stuff that is wrong in our country. This by the way is the exact set of words we use - fix the stuff. There is a strange notion that someone is going to come from somewhere and undo all the wrongful things that have been done by politicians in the past 20 years. This notion is being built upon by the constant excuses of the government after each damning EU report. They constantly repeat that we are either being discriminated by OLAF or that the negative statements in those reports are just opinions of some simple clerks. The bad news is that many believe them.
So what’s the good news? There is usually one and in our case, as one would expect, it comes from the people. In the past 2 years many independent movements and NGOs have managed to influence the decision making in one or another way. In the last few months a new wave started to materialize - that of the Internet society. Now most protests are organized through forums and blogs by random people and not by parties and unions as before. Although the medium of communication is not that notable and novel, it is important to understand the change in the way we communicate with the government and the mainstream media. Suddenly blogs were recognized as “the voice of the people”. The analysis and personal thoughts we put out started to get attention. In the past 3 weeks I’ve had half a dozen interviews, despite the fact that I am 2500 km. away. My blogger friends back in Bulgaria are in morning shows and radio stations almost every day. There is an online TV station that works exclusively with bloggers. We even have a special blogger mailinglist to share the invitations.
This shows an important sign of awakening. It has not however changed our notion of the EU. Still most Bulgarians don’t know that they can influence the European Parliament and that threatens to ruin these EU elections. There are even talks of combining those with our Parliament elections in order to save money and up the turnout. Considering how little we know about the EU issues, this move will ensure that our EU vote will be based solely on our internal politics, which as we know is not such a good idea.
There are some bloggers and alternative media, who have decided to start several parallel campaigns to make those issues more popular. Some are financed by the EU, others are done out of good will. If they don’t succeed however, I assure you that the turnout at the elections will not matter at all, because people will not be voting for the EU, but against the current ruling coalition and in favor of any politician with a laud enough voice.
(51 votes, average: 4.39 out of 5)
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Здравейте. Статията Ви е добра. Мисля, че трябва да я допълните с още една теза - Резистентното отношение на българина към евро изборите е в резултат и на неразбирането му (незнанието) с какво точно се занимава Евро Парламента (какви въпроси решава, каква тежест имат гласовете, как са организирани групите…). Никой от политиците в България не култивира такова познание, даже тъкмо обратното. По предизборни срещи хората поставят въпроси от компетентността и на кмета, и на Парламента, и на централната изпълнителна власт - изобщо не знаят кой за какво носи отговорност. В блоговете е друго. Блоговете се пишат от и четат от грамотни хора. Големият въпрос е как тези мнения (вашето също) могат да стигат до средно статистическия българин (гласоподавателят) и дали той изобщо може да разбере какво му се казва.
Поздравления за усилията Ви.
Since Miglena wrote in Bulgarian, I will try and translate her comment the best I can, so that everyone understands it:
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Hello. Your article is good. I think that you should extend it with one more thesis - the negative attitude towards the euro elections is due to the lack of understanding (and knowledge) about what exactly the European Parliament does (what issues does it solve, what weight do the votes have, how are the groups organized …). None of the politicians in Bulgaria cultivates such knowledge - just to the contrary. On election meetings, people ask questions about how competent the major, the local Parliament and the executive power are - no one knows who has what responsibilities. The blogs are different. The blogs are written and read by educated people. The big question is how these opinions (yours included) can reach the average Bulgarian (voter) and if he/she can understand the message at all. Congratulations on your efforts.
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Dear Miglena, I understand your worries and I had them too not long ago. In the last 2-3 weeks however I have begun to have more hope that the mainstream media will help us with that. After all - it can reach everyone in the country, while the blogs can reach only a few.
It is also true that those few that we manage to reach out to, pass the message among their friends and coworkers. Such a case was observed during the protests between 14. and 16. January - there was little information in the media and the main news source was the web. We saw many reports on that phenomenon. A similar thing happened with the “scandal” with Borisov’s speech two weeks ago.
That is why I am confident that with enough written material and help from our journalist friends we can reach those average voters and teach them about the EU.
bravo na teb!:)
A point well taken. It goes pretty much along the same lines in Romania. There will be a low turnout in EP elections (because the general understanding of EP is low, and not only because of that - but also because of the same sentiment of political fatigue you are mentioning), but there will still be a high acceptance of the EU.
As for the influences of the new media in Bulgaria, I do understand all these developments, however what big of an impact do they have still? How many readers does the most widely read Bulgarian blog have? Does it even compare to a Bulgarian tabloid? Or do Bulgarian bloggers have the same influence as old media pundits that keep get invited to TV shows in the evening?
Статията на блогъра Боян Юруков отразява обективно настроенията на българските граждани по отношение на политическата ситуация в страната и институциите на Европейския съюз, главно Европейската комисия и служителите й.
Мисля, че обединението на политическите блогъри в България и приятелските им мрежи в Интернет могат да помогнат много за организиране на комуникационна кампания за изборите за Европейски парламент от страна на гражданското общество.
Преди две години правителството и Информационният офис на Европейския парламент в София не организираха сериозна медийна кампания чрез електронните медии.
Тази година ситуацията вероятно ще е същата, защото досега трябваше да се подготвят телевизионните предавания, за да започне излъчване през март.
Да не говорим за това, че сериозна кампания означава зелена вълна на последователни включвания на телевизии, радиа, печатни вестници, паралелно ПР-информация чрез е-вестници, сайтове и блогове в Интернет.
Всичко това трябваше да се организира и финансира от правителството по Комуникационната му стратегия, национален вариант на Комуникационната стратегия по разширяването, дело на Европейската комисия.
Задачата на Комуникационната стратегия е да увеличи информацията за Европейския съюз сред гражданите му.
Затова гражданското общество трябва да се самоорганизира и чрез блоговете и социалните мрежи в Интернет да направи своя комуникационна кампания за населението.
За да знаят повече хора за правомощията на Европейския парламент и да отидат да гласуват за предпочитаната от тях политика на Европейските партии.
Извинявам се, че пиша на български език, но от 2007 г. той е един от официалните езици на Европейския съюз и като такъв е равноправен с другите официални езици.
@Corina Murafa - I don’t think that a blogger in Bulgaria can reach the reader mass of a tabloid. My blog for example has 13000 unique readers per month. Others have much more. The point here however is that the accumulative reader mass of even the top 500 blogger overpower some of the bigger newspapers.
These bloggers often engage in different initiatives or spread the word about an event that one can’t find in the news. Thus such information finds it’s way to a large number of people and really has an impact. This is not a theory, but the practice.
Very good article.You are a true reflector of the bulgarian public opinion!
Thanks for an interesting post. I will be looking forward to read a post about the january demonstrations and the online strategies applied later
best,
anders
@Dimitar - thanks Mitko, I am doing my best. I don’t have any illusions that I know what all Bulgarians think and feel, but so far I seem to be getting the gist of it.
@anderspedersen - I am indeed planing to write a post about that. The events however are still fresh and in some extend still ongoing. I think I need some time to step back and see the whole picture in order to talk about them. Although I am not physically taking part in the protest, I feel like I take an active role, because of my online activity.
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