1989. 1996. 2002. 2013. 2024. These are the turning points for the new history of Bulgaria. From the moment she starts waking up (1989) to the moment she… keeps waking up (2024). A period of time that was filled with almost consecutive episodes of resurgent hope for a “bright future” with the collapse of communism, the country’s accession to the EU and NATO, to
the apathy of the present masquerading as “security”
with the imposed nonsense of voting today. And refusing to vote next Sunday will be nothing but a vote against everything that has been achieved.
Financier Levon Hampartzumyan made a strong call for civic engagement and a sensible attitude to Bulgaria’s future during the “Let’s Wake Bulgaria” event on Sunday, which brought together more than 1,000 supporters of “Continuing Change – Democratic Bulgaria” at the Sofia Event Center. Remembering the hard times in 1996, he quoted his landmark conversation with the Lebanese ambassador:
“In 1996, the country was going downhill and we thought we had reached the bottom. However, in one conversation, the Lebanese ambassador told me: “In 1973
we thought we had hit rock bottom.
It’s only been downhill since then. Down there is no limit…” If we don’t mobilize and convince more people of rational ideas rather than miracles – like the 5,000 horse power car (if only an engineer had been invited on television to explain that this was impossible!). we cannot go forward,” Hampartzumyan said. He asked rhetorically to all who were tired of voting: “Shouldn’t we go to Stochna station to load cement?”
If you let Phenomena with an insatiable business logic rule, we will end up in a catastrophe, but we don’t want that – the financier added.
Listen to his full speech:
“Let’s wake up Bulgaria” was not an ordinary political event – the word had bright voices of the democratic community. While the leaders of “We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria” were in the first row in the audience, significant public figures spoke from the stage – about the meaning of choice, freedom, right of the pursuit of happiness, for the future and why the “fatigue” of elections will only leave Bulgaria to those who want to return us to the past.
All those who say there is no point in voting actually want to have complete control over the election results and take away from us all the birthright in a democratic world. And why is it important to express a civil position, explained the chairman of “Justice for Everyone” Velislav Velichkov:
“A free citizen always has a choice. The choice is to be a citizen or subject to a vassal.”
Velichkov commented on the desire of some people to “boycott the bought vote by not voting: “How exactly are you going to boycott by not voting? In this way, you will only give the remaining votes to the one who buys, because with a 25% voter turnout, the bought vote becomes stronger and doubles the parliamentary seats of such formations. Citizens have to oppose the organized crime group that is trying to bring mafia into the state. They have a mafia in Italy. They recently told me from there – you don’t have a mafia, you have a gang. So that the gang does not become a mafia, let’s go out and vote!Velichkov also urged.
Listen to his full speech:
And while we are looking for the reason, what motivates people to vote, one of the most important questions facing Bulgarians was asked from the stage: Do we, as a people, deserve to be happy? This was asked by the opera singer Alexandrina Pendanchanska, who almost brought the audience to tears with an emotional speech about happiness. – “My answer is a resounding YES… With us, the conversation comes to survival, to experience, the maximum we manage to bring it to is some apparent stability. Where is the growth? Where is the success? Where is the happiness?”, she asked and added: Can a people, whose judge is Delyan Peevski, live in something resembling happiness?”
The answer to this question can be given by every single citizen precisely through their vote on Sunday, and until then the opera prima reminded who is fighting for a better future.
“The governments of Kiril Petkov and Nikolay Denkov lasted too short. But they went in the right direction – among other things, they managed to increase incomes and reduce the imbalance between super-rich and poor Bulgarians. With this, they contributed to a fairer, more a happy society,” Pendachanska was emphatic.
Finally the sociologist and public figure Prof. Georgi Fotev shook the audience with extremely emotional words:
“You can’t say ‘I don’t want to vote.’ Because Aristotle also said that you cannot be a person outside of society. He who does not vote is a slave. Because he refuses to participate in deciding the fate of society”.