When I came back to the square later today, around 17:00 the meeting was already breaking up, and it did not seem like very many more people had been there than at 14:00. I saw a lot of new faces though,so maybe the total number of participants was higher, becuause some came and other went.
No doubt the low number of participants was a miscalculation for the protesters. In the press they have expressed hopes that more people would come out Saturday then previous days, since also employed people are free.
I walked around a little bit in the neighbourhood, and saw no signs of destruction at all.
Tomorrow at noon Zelenite -a green party with connections to the demonstrating ecologist will hold a press conference. They will present their proposal for a sytematic revision of the Bulgarian democracy to involve citizens in the decision making process.
Saturday is the publishing date of the weekly magazine Kapital, one of Bulgarias leading opinion voices. In today's issue they published a feature article about the protest movement that they described as "authentic, but without a clear leadership". In order to create lasting change leadership is necessary, according to Kapital. I hope to post an english summary of this article tomorrow, since I regard Kapital as an important source of information about Bulgaria.
The organizers of the protests have stressed that the movement is political, but not connected to any party. Maybe tomorrows press conference marks the next step, necessary according to Kapital – to articulate a political alternative to the government the protesters oppose.
When I was at the protest his morning ecologists were not very outspoken. The meeting had a rather conservative touch, and I saw lots of stickers for the Liberal SDS' campaign Ser Go Home! This could be a sign that the heterogenous movement is developing in different directions.
No comments:
Post a Comment