Let's hope

I just finished reading yesterdays issue of Kapital, a newspaper I admire for its flawless journalism more than the somewhat naive faith in market liberalism. Of course the entire newpaper this week is about Bojko Borisovs new government. Kapital's hopes are: a) that Borisov will keep his promises and b) that he will cooperate with the blue alliance and noone else to gets support in the parliament.

Many Bulgarians I meet would agree... after all the previous government was vry corrupt, and any politician who can deal with the corruption is welcome. Let's hope Borisov can do it. They sem to agree with the Economist's catchy phrasing: "EXASPERATED voters boot out a bad government and install an unknown one."

Borisov is not very unknown. As Kapital points out, Bulgarians have been able to follow him for a ong time, as head of the ministry of interior and as mayor of Sofia. But the party GERB is new,and most of its deputies are not known faces. In deed, this parliament will ahve more first time deputies than any previous.

But there are also quite some Bulgarians who have seen Borisov, and don't like him at all. The city is right now filled with posters indicating that GERB are mutri the bulgarian word for mafiosi. Borisovs history of as a body guard of communist and post communist leaders, in the ministry of interior etc. might indicate something more like Putin (ex-KGB) than Barack Obama.

Maybe the crucial dilemma is this: in order to clean out corruption a very strong leadership will be neede, one that can ignore the parliament when needed. But what happens to democracy?

Kaptial seemed pleased with Borisovs initial moves, and confident about the people he has appointed to reform justice and get the budet in order. Me mayself I can't really come to terms with Borisovs "unconvential" behavior. Being an Eu memeber might prevent him from beocoming a Putin, but not from becoming a Berlusconi. But sure... let's hope!