/ world today news/ “The struggle of external factors and behind the scenes for the governance of Bulgaria created a weightless situation”, the MEP believes
“Constitutional reform seems inevitable to me and it should be in the spirit of the presidential republic. The current Constitution is clearly exhausted. It manifested many negative features of our society: partisanship, propensity for corruption, disrespect for the law, which also gave birth to today’s political impasse. It cannot be solved with the mechanisms of the current Constitution. Of course, these mechanisms can charge a few more short-lived and disappointing governments, as they have done in the past, but not a strategic prospect for a way out of this situation.”
Ivo Hristov, a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the EP (S&D) and head of the president’s office Rumen Radev in the period 2017-2019, stated this in an interview for the program “This is Bulgaria” on the air of Radio “Focus”. .
According to Hristov, the connection between the political class and the Bulgarians is obviously broken.
“It is evident from the small percentage of voters. There is no debate because people do not trust the sellers of the political stall. Their words are like money without a cover. Few believe them. That’s why no one buys their goods. That is why there is no debate, figuratively speaking, no one bargains with them, because there is no faith in promise sellers. The media is also not stimulating the debate. The same guests comment on Covid-19, the political crisis, aviation and natural disasters,” the MEP believes.
According to Ivo Hristov, we are in the grip of many superstitions and delusions: “It is difficult to inventory them. The most obvious one is that if you don’t vote, you punish the politicians. In fact it was precisely the withdrawal from the ballot box that allowed political arbitrariness and charlatans to overpower and silence common sense. Another fallacy is that the presidential republic means unchecked power and personal rule and that therefore we should preserve the parliamentary one. Don’t we remember that the parliamentary republic gave birth to Borisov’s personal regime? Most delusions are laboratory-planted by vested interests and germinate with the help of servile media.”
The MEP is of the opinion that the partisan attitude towards state administration in Bulgaria is a product of the parliamentary republic, in which even small parties can keep everyone else in check and set the agenda.
“This is the phenomenon of the ‘golden finger.’ We remember how the last regular government collapsed – after a small group of people seceded from it.”
When asked by the presenter what shaped the processes in Bulgaria, Hristov answered: “In the first years of the Transition, the processes were modeled by the channel set by the round table. The backstage was invariably an important actor. As well as external factors. At the moment, it seems to me that the processes are moving by inertia, because the struggle of external factors and behind the scenes to take control of the management has created a weightless situation. And social tension is growing, people are getting poorer, prices are rising, energy bills are being raised, and all this portends tremors.”
Ivo Hristov clarified that consultations with the president are part of the constitutional procedure, although he himself does not see any direct benefit from them.
“In any case, a governing majority is achieved through negotiations between the parties, not by the president. He fulfills his constitutional role in good faith. The funny thing is that with so many parties in the parliament, the procedure itself drags on for a long time, it is repeated and over time it gets tired of the viewers and that is normal. This is also part of the breakdown of the parliamentary republic.”
According to the MEP all media and practically all parties are working against the idea of a presidential republic and at this stage it cannot succeed:
“As always, everything will happen in the most difficult way, with a lot of wasted time and energy, with a lot of fruitless elections because today’s establishment – politicians, corrupt business and administration, feeds off the current system. And people are tired and distrustful. Those who hate the presidential republic offer no alternative, but cling to the current system, which clearly no longer works. Public apathy, unfortunately, is an ally of their behavior.”
Ivo Hristov expressed the opinion that many parties in Bulgaria have no understanding of national interest, and some openly privilege foreign interests over Bulgarian ones.
“There are parties that will not reconcile until they bring Bulgaria into the war. This is their calling. We are already heavily involved in this conflict: economically, politically, and increasingly militarily. I’m not sure if another missile incident like the one in Poland will end without consequences. The risk of being drawn into war is increasing, especially with the kind of “two-speed NATO” we are seeing. It’s one thing to be somewhere on the Atlantic coast and watch the war from that safer distance, it’s another thing to be on the front lines. There are forces that seek to consolidate this first line as a defensive rampart for the second line,” Hristov believes.
The MEP also commented on the topic of the potential and risks of applying artificial intelligence. A few days ago, he was the only Bulgarian participant in the conference “Public Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence” in the European Parliament.
“The over-expectations are that artificial intelligence will do what humans cannot. That it will exceed the capabilities of natural intelligence. But that’s exactly where the risks are. I heard an adviser to Elon Musk prophesy that artificial intelligence will be the highest, but also the last creation of human civilization, because it will be able to do everything better than us, and gradually the creation will replace the creator. At first in individual activities, and in the long term – also as a biological species. Therefore, we should consider ethically every innovation, which we do not have the practice to do. This was also discussed at the debate in Brussels.”
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