At the beginning of June, big businessman Vasil Bozhkov, against whom the specialized prosecutor’s office has brought multiple charges in absentia, and a fugitive in Dubai, stated his intention of entering Bulgarian politics.

Two days ago he announced on Facebook, that his political project would be called “Bulgarian summer” and even posted a survey with the question: Would you support me for a new political project? Expectedly, his stated intention made the public and analysts sit up, even though, as political analyst Boris Popivanov says, Facebook politics are not real politics.

“No Bulgarian businessmen have ever shown any potential for an independent political project. There have been attempts to enter politics with parties of their own but, on the whole, they have been a failure or have survived for no more than one term of office. I do not think that this time it will be any different. All the more so that we have a figure who cannot even return to Bulgaria, to say nothing of how his ideas, his plans can be returned”, Boris Popivanov maintains.

According to sociologist Yuriy Aslanov, Vasil Bozhkov has no political potential of his own, though he could contribute to a change in the correlation among the political forces. Driven by a feeling of being wronged and by vindictiveness – that is how Aslanov describes the conduct of the “gambling tycoon”.

“I do not think that Bozhkov is a man without sound judgement – of facts and of his own self. He ought to know he is not the charismatic, alluring figure capable of accumulating energy. What he can do is boost the political engineering of other projects and lend them power, naturally – financial power.”

Sociologist Andrey Raychev describes the stated intention of the indicted businessman to set up a political project for bringing down the Boyko Borissov government, as Bozhkov himself declared in an interview for Bloomberg, as a game, at the same time calculated and naïve.

“His chances are next to none,” says Andrey Raychev. “Bulgarians loathe the rich because they think that they have grown rich dishonestly in the years of transition. If Bozhkov was to support another political formation, he could obtain a “mouthpiece” and, possibly a seat in parliament and hence the immunity he would need to come back to Bulgaria. In any case, the man bears a grudge. Nevertheless, he is not playing his cards emotionally, his moves come in dribs and drabs.”

Political analyst Stoycho Stoychev agrees that Bozhkov is more likely to push people away than to attract the public with his public overexposure. The political analyst says that talking about political projects is in itself an “unhealthy” phenomenon in our society.

“The perception of politics in terms of projects is fundamentally an aberration. But it has come to be accepted as a practice ever since the administration switched to organizing and financing its activities on a project basis. A project is something that has a short duration. i.e. it ends once the targets are met. A project is not the same thing as a vision for a long-term presence. A possible Vasil Bozhkov project can be limited in time up until the elections,” says Stoycho Stoychev in conclusion.

Edited by Krasimir Martinov

Source: Horizont channel, BNR