Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the protests against the Bulgarian government that presided over the country’s worst economic crisis of recent times, this month has seen an extraordinary rash of protests.

Civic groups and political parties and somewhat less formal associations of people with something in common have been protesting. On February 14, a minor political party organised an omnibus protest with room for every grievance. Those who turned out for it were protesting, collectively and individually and apparently in no particular order, against the excise on home-made rakiya, against the inadequacy of pensions, against shortcomings in education, about failings in health care, about the high price of electricity and the high costs of central heating.

Recent weeks have seen a series of protests by pensioners’ groups demanding higher pensions, competing for government and media attention with demonstrations in various towns and villages against the excise on rakiya, and protests against Natura 2000, the European environmental conservation network. On February 9, the carefully planned event that was the mass rally in solidarity with the medics facing the death sentence in Libya was upstaged to some extent by the wildcat blockade of Sofia by taxi drivers demanding action in the wake of the murder of one of their number. Like the taxi drivers, there was a similar spontaneity in the protests by prisoners demanding that the benefits of a recently announced plan for amnesty be extended to them. Not to be outdone in this season of protest, one of the minority right-wing parties has said that it intends tabling a motion of no confidence in the Government, on the grounds of the problems in health care. What most of the protests have in common, with the exception of the prisoners and the right-wing opposition, is that they either want the Government to give them what they demand, or to resign, although these options are not necessarily put in that order. The taxi drivers were shouting calls to the authorities to resign, even before they put their demands to them. The prisoners do not appear to care who is in power, as long as they are not in prison. And the right-wing opposition party certainly wants the current Government out of office, or at least, knowing that this is unlikely, will probably be prepared to settle for the television time it will get out of tabling the motion. There are, after all, European parliamentary and Bulgarian municipal elections this year.

None of this is to suggest that some of these grievances are not legitimate. This newspaper has recently held that greater efficiencies and savings in national finances should be directed to assisting pensioners and improving education and health care. The latter two unquestionably need improvements, especially in regard to equipment and salaries. The elderly and impoverished should not be at risk of dying of exposure in their own apartments if they cannot pay for heating; this too is a legitimate concern. No one, let alone taxi drivers, should be exposed to the risk of dying in a violent crime, although it is notable that the taxi drivers’ protest turned from demands for improved security to demands for commercial advantages. The Natura 2000 series of protests seems the best example of what many of the issues have in common: a failure by this Government and its predecessors to communicate adequately, although in the case of bread-and-butter issues like pensions and health care, good communication cannot be offered in isolation from tangible resources.

It is unlikely that any single one of these issues and protests will lead to the Government falling, but that is no reason for complacency. A serious re-consideration of priorities, and an effort to rally the means to support these priorities, is needed.