35 years ago, the transition from communism to democracy began, which many consider to still be ongoing. One of the things that did not happen "like in the West" is the treatment of people who were once in power, but are no longer. They are often scorned, their achievements denied and unrecognized.
This is most evident in the attitude towards former party leaders. The parties that belong to one of the major political families immediately created a division in their structures called "Elders" - i.e. veterans, as it is in the West. However, they did not fully embrace the respect that is due to the "elders" or "seniors", as they are still called in the circles of socialists in Western Europe.
An example of this is the two historic parties of the transition - the Bulgarian Communist Party / Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Union of Democratic Forces. In two consecutive articles from Epicenter.bg we will remind what happened to the leaders of these two parties.
Here is the chronology of the process of removing the leaders from the political scene, which took place in the red ranks during the post-authoritarian years.
The transition is considered to have begun on November 10, 1989. On this date, a plenum of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party was held, which unlike previous similar events, which propaganda called historical, actually became historic. At this meeting, Todor Zhivkov, who had led the communist party since 1954, was replaced. And later on, he was expelled from the BKP.
For the young people who don't remember the years of socialism, if they have any memory of Zhivkov at all, he is someone who is being carried away by a police cordon covered with a blanket. Former leader of socialist Bulgaria faced five lawsuits, he was put in custody, despite being 78 years old and there was hardly any danger for him to "hide or commit a new crime", for such a measure of deprivation.
Zhivkov remains behind bars for more than six months. He is being tried for the process of reviving the country, for distributing cars and apartments, for the "death camps", for the assistance Bulgaria provided to other countries. His death in 1998 put an end to the cases against him. In fact, what Zhivkov has been prosecuted for are all decisions made by collective bodies. In which some of the people who were encouraging this discussion were also part of. In other words - his party comrades. The true attitude of people towards Zhivkov, at the time renamed to the Bulgarian Socialist Party Communist Party, was revealed by his reception at the "Kremikovtsi" factory in the late 90s. He was under house arrest and received special permission from law enforcement to meet with the workers. The first economic difficulties of the transition were already present, and the people who remembered the peaceful life under his rule welcomed him enthusiastically. His party membership was restored.
Prominent names from the higher echelons of the Bulgarian Communist Party - Petar Mladenov, Stanko Todorov, Dobri Djurov, Alexander Lilov, Georgi Atanasov, as witnesses in one of Zhivkov's cases in the courtroom Mladenov, who succeeded Zhivkov at the head of the BKP and briefly serving as state leader, avoids following in his predecessor's footsteps, maybe because after resigning as president/chairman of the republic, he completely withdraws from public life.
And Lilov, who replaced him as leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, is perhaps the only socialist leader who maintains his positions within the party until his death, respectfully called "The Strategist", and always receives the most votes at congresses for the election of members of the National Council.
At Lilov's initiative, the BCP renounced the revival process as early as the end of 1989, and the names of Bulgarian Turks were restored. Lilov is the author of the new program of the political party "New times, new Bulgaria, new BSP", based on democratic socialism. Under his leadership, the name of the party was changed from communist to socialist on April 3, 1990.
In December 1991, he stepped down and allowed for younger leaders to take over, and Jean Videnov, chosen by him, became the chairman of BSP. Videnov was only 32 years old at the time. There is no more disgraced Bulgarian politician than Videnov! He was mainly blamed for the financial crisis in 1996/97, which led to hyperinflation and devalued the savings of generations of Bulgarians for decades. But no one, not even those who replaced him as the party's leader, paid any attention to the fact that the government and the prime minister cannot be blamed for the banks that collapsed in the early 1990s, which one after another started "crumbling" in the late decade, because the leadership of the banking system had moved to the BNB [Central Bank] since the beginning of the transition. It seemed as if everyone who sat at "Dondukovo" 1 until yesterday side by side with Videnov forgot that during his time Bulgaria applied for membership in the European Union. However, the regular socialists still held respect for Zhivko Videnov, which could be seen every year at the national assembly on Buzludzha, where he was always surrounded by hundreds of sympathizers.
Georgi Parvanov is the next leader of BSP who could have become the most successful politician from its ranks with his two presidential terms, if he had not founded ABV upon leaving "Dondoukov" 2. This undermined his own cause of uniting the left. As chairman of BSP, Parvanov did the impossible to save the party after the collapse of the Vidanov government and the crisis of 1997. For BSP, the 90s were a time for ideological debates on what the party should be - socialist or social-democratic.
BSP has been "accepted" in the honey, which, with various maneuvers, has repeatedly refused to be accused of not having overcome its communist mentality, that it is striving for hegemony in the political process and for power at all costs (as if political parties are literary organizations and by definition are not created specifically to participate in power). In 1997 it seemed that the party had headed towards political insignificance (like the rest of its sister parties from the Soviet bloc) and would never recover. But under the leadership of Parvanov, it managed to recover. He carried out the so-called Thessaloniki process, which led to the unification of four left-wing parties - BSP, European Left, United Labour Block and the BSDP of Dr. Petar Derliew. While former communists were mostly members of the European Left and the ULB, the case with the BSDP was not the same. This is the historical social democratic party, carrying the memory of a much older split with the communists - from the first decades of the 20th century. Later, social democrats are "enemies" of the communist regime, and Derdliyev himself is sent to a camp. Therefore, in the first years of transition, the restored Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is part of the Union of Democratic Forces. It is important to remember this in order to realize the importance of this alliance, forged by Parvanov. His work is also the even wider left coalition "Coalition for Bulgaria", with which the BSP consolidates the entire center-left political space and for years appears in elections under this name. The enthusiasm from winning the presidential elections in 2001 revived BSP, giving it new life.
At the head of the socialist party after Parvanov was elected Sergey Stanishev. This happened at a congress meeting in December 2001. And here we should perhaps remember a historical paradox - the format of a "permanent congress" was invented against Parvanov, in order to be able to remove him quickly and without the cumbersome procedure of electing delegates. And he used it to elegantly step down, after he had already been elected as head of state. By saying the phrase, "his heart continues to beat on the left". What does a permanent congress mean? Simply put, the delegates can be convened by a decision of the National Council at any time, and not only once every four years. Today, hardly anyone remembers how this amendment to the statute was imposed. As it was said, it was an element of inner-party struggles. The transformations in the Socialist Party, carried out by Parvanov and the whole course he followed, were not accepted uncritically by the party. The turn towards NATO was particularly difficult to accept. Parvanov was not popular within the party and the way its leaders treated him was as if they had forgotten about him. The prominent socialists did not resist his media tarnishing and remained silent even when blatant lies were spoken against him. The resistance against his leadership also took on an organizational form - the so-called Open Forum, led by Krasimir Premyanov. As the BSP was democratizing, it allowed for factions to exist within its ranks. It was Premyanov who came up with the idea of holding constant congresses, perhaps hoping that one of these congresses would remove Parvanov from power. But after the victory in the presidential elections, all of Pǎrvanov's sins were forgiven. Even by the socialists who had criticized him until the very end. As they say, "the winners are not judged".
And Sergei Stanishev, who became the leader of the party on December 5th, 2001, remained at the helm of the BSP for 13 years - until July 2014. If we were living in the Middle Ages, when every prominent participant in political processes had a motto, Stanishev could certainly be called "The Luckiest". Because under his leadership, the BSP, a former communist party from Eastern Europe, not only gained rehabilitation and the right to exist in the political arena. BSP was consistently accepted into the Socialist International (in 2003) and the Party of European Socialists, which unites the socialist and social democratic parties from the European Union, in 2004. Furthermore - Stanishev was elected as President of PES and was re-elected to this position for more than ten years. Under his leadership, BSP won the parliamentary elections in 2005, which was unthinkable just a few years earlier. Then Stanishev became prime minister and made history as the leader who brought the country into the European Union. But today his comrades probably do not need his experience or have forgotten his contributions, because during the summer, when the candidate lists were being formed, they could not find him a place in any of them, despite his dozens of nominations from municipal organizations. In the media, many of them prefer to emphasize that it "started with the exclusions", excluding Parvanov, Rumen Petkov and Ivaylo Kalfin, conveniently forgetting that according to the statute they had self-excluded due to participation in another candidate list.
After Stanishev, BSP was led by Mihail Mikov. He remained in the position for only two years and was replaced by Korneliya Ninova. The reason - the poor performance in the parliamentary elections in 2014, where BSP received 39 parliamentary seats. In the previous election, they had 84.
Korneliya Ninova was elected to replace Mikov and initially lived up to expectations. In the following parliamentary elections in 2017, BSP took 80 seats, and the previous year they had also won the presidential elections. Ninova, however, has taken upon herself to change the ideology of the party, turning towards conservatism and even freezing relations with the PES. In internal party terms, measures were imposed on dissatisfied organizations such as organizing a full cycle of reports and elections in order to replace their leadership. And so it was all over the country, starting with the largest organizations - the ones in Sofia and Plovdiv. As the cherry on top, Ninova also declared war on Rumen Radev, who she herself had imposed as a candidate for president. And as they say, the results were not long in coming. The BSP collapsed in the elections. The political situation had become one where there were elections every year, and in some years even two or three. And the results for the left had hit rock bottom. For the first time, Ninova accused the machine voting, which until this moment she had strongly supported, but then she saw the truth and resigned. However, this was not her first resignation, but the previous one was not "acknowledged" by the congress. And in order to ensure that this episode does not repeat itself, her comrades excluded her from the party just in case. Now Cornelia Ninova does not miss the opportunity to point out that those who are currently leading the centenary - Atanas Zafirov, Borisov Gutsanov and Christian Vigenin, were by her side yesterday and approved everything she did as a leader. They, in turn, do not owe her anything.
And in this poisonous atmosphere, infecting even the primary party organizations, it is no wonder that former BSP leaders like Zhan Videnov and Mihail Mikov are no longer members of the BSP. Parvanov has also withdrawn from active politics, despite spending the summer rallying his entire authority in favor of the new coalition "BSP - United Left".
Stanishev is from the next generation and it is too early for him to retire from politics, but his comrades seem to have decided that his time has passed and he has nothing more to offer to the party. Unlike Ninova, however, Stanishev does not publicly express his disappointments. And when he criticizes, he does so from the principled positions of a regular socialist. His "golden time" as a leader, when BSP members held key positions both nationally and locally, is still remembered. But unlike Ninova, Stanishev does not use this capital destructively. The former chairman of the BSP, on the other hand, is now promoting her new political project, with which she certainly hopes to grab a few more percentage points of the party's alive flesh.
Meanwhile, she continues to decline, while her leaders engage in battles with their predecessors.
And in another aspect, we do not resemble the "West". Probably because of the weakness of our economy. "There", retired leaders join the boards of companies, foundations, or non-governmental organizations supported by these companies. With us, it seems that there is no place under the sun for those who have retired from active politics, even in the height of their powers. In the parties, there are already new leaders who do not want competition, and there is simply no way out.
26587 | 21 Nov. 2024 | 15:40
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