Political analyst Professor Vassil Garnizov of New Bulgarian University comments on Boiko Borissov:
The formula for political success in this country seems simple: a return to normalcy plus marketing. In one instance, the outcome has been breathtaking: in fewer than five years, Boiko Borissov’s career has skyrocketed. A firefighter and bodyguard for has-beens with shady friends and worrying prospects, he became a general and the chief secretary of the Interior Ministry. Afterwards, he fairly effortlessly cruised into the capital city’s mayor’s office, often viewed as the fourth most senior office in the topography of this country’s power. And everything suggests that this is not the end stop in his personal political strategy. This political and social leap became possible as a result of a favourable combination of personal qualities which turned out to be acceptable or expected in a society dominated by distrust in its institutions and gloom over the return to normalcy.
No clear project, only a clear image
Instead of a new collective project, Borissov offers society his own attractive image which, whether accidentally or not, coincides with the image of a classic anti-systemic player. He deploys the politics of emotions, where instead of George Gantchev’s songs and Volen Siderov’s verbal abuse, the public sees a direct, self-evident and self-sufficient body. Tall, muscular, athletic, quick, narcissistic, egotistical, superficial, a show-off, bragging, ambitious, charming, outgoing, he enjoys being the centre of attention. He eschews elite gatherings with the cultured public and prefers to connect with less informed listeners and viewers, to whom he demonstrates physical strength, powerful protectiveness, human concern and a secret knowledge of life’s shady side. He speaks informally about institutional matters, using simple and common messages, which refer to the self-evident nature of his body, spiced up with sexist innuendo and homophobic gestures. He is quick to announce events as they happen, where he is the protagonist, and so he constantly seeks media attention.
No platform, only a marketing strategy
His mistakes imbue him with authenticity absent in most other professional politicians. His media consultants understand this well, and make no effort to rehearse or massage his performance; they simply encourage his presence in the public space, whether to produce or comment upon events. He issues flash pronouncements on all manner of topical and sore matters, events, problems, and crises. Bootlegging, drug trafficking, Columbian cocaine, currency counterfeiting, power corruption, expanding presidential authority, judicial and pretrial practices reform, evening the score among criminal groups, the kidnapping of Bulgarian drivers in Iraq, the drowning of Svishtov students in the Lim river, suspicious SUVs with Sofia license plates during the local elections in Svilengrad, the impact of Azis’ derriere on a young child’s mind, security for the newly uncovered gold in Golyama Kosmatka - these are just snippets of the general’s extensive repertoire.
No party, only media politicking
This diversity of subjects and events always carries the risk of inaccuracy, appearing a know-it-all, and failure. However, this seems to have been accounted for in the general’s image to the people; he is not perfect, and most of his future voters are not either. In addition, security matters in this country have always been shrouded in secrecy which presents a problem for beat journalists to begin with. General Borissov, through his rash wordiness, comes to fill precisely this void for the media. In exchange, he wins allies, to survive in openly hostile institutional surroundings: the interior minister, the generals of the former state security services, members of the parliamentary majority in power, ministers, magistrates, and a wide range of affected corporate - including shady - interests.
And so the general has managed to advance his career without political friends, but with enough personal and institutional enemies. The media remain his only constant allies, the others changing quickly and en passant. Thus, the prosecutor’s office turns from an enemy into a friend indeed, against the common institutional enemy, the court, without this causing charges of inconsistency or lack of backbone.
The general’s interaction with political parties is similarly ambiguous and quick to change. Entering the ministry of the interior as prime-minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s direct representative, he had the parliamentary majority backing him but never relied on it, and sometimes took exception to the party of his leader, NMSII, and most often placed it in a common category of wrong-doers: “them” - parties, members of parliament, politicians. Along with that, he accepted to head up two party lists during the 2004 parliamentary elections (which, incidentally, was a losing proposition both for him and NMSII). His anti-systemic charm fails to work electoral wonders when straight jacketed into a national party campaign and faced with strong local political groups, which stand in the way of his capitalizing on his personal charisma in electoral behavior. Having learned his lesson, Borissov stood down from his seat in parliament and established an exploratory committee to speak instead of him and won the capital city’s local by-election as an independent candidate. He eschewed publicly debating party candidates during the campaign, refusing to be identified along the left-right political spectrum, while employing the rightist political rhetoric of security, as well as the support of small local political factions in the by then imploding right. He came in first during the first round in all electoral districts, gaining his highest advantage - five to one - in the city’s peripheral regions and large bedroom communities. Having won as the face and body of the periphery, the new mayor immediately cast off both his supporting political players and all parties in the municipal council, which were to be from then on pointed at as the major reason for the city’s misfortunes, yet at the same time suggesting that he is prepared to form his own party, should his heroic personal corporeal mayoral effort fail to produce the desired result.
Uniform, but no institution
It is not simply his interaction with parties, his relations with the institutions of the democratic order as a whole have been complex and ambivalent from the very beginning of his public career. When he became a general and the chief secretary of the Interior Ministry, he donned a general’s uniform, editing it to suit his own style, sticking to his three-day stubble. He would seldom put on the general’s jacket, whether to pose for a photo op, or to attend a super official occasion, which he would avoid to begin with. He would defend the honour and name of rank-and-file policemen, introduce an informal spirit of camaraderie at the institution, where he was most often referred to BBB (Bate Boiko Borissov, “bate” being a somewhat honorific reference to an older brother), often voicing his satisfaction with the professional echelon while critical of its political leadership, ascribing some of his failure to it.
There are no people to commend outside his narrow professional circle, only to blame. There is always someone standing in the way, and depending on context, in addition to the interior ministry’s political leadership, the finger is pointed at parties, members of parliament, judges, or - most recently - Sofia’s municipal councillors. “We put them away, they let them out”, “we introduce bills, they fail to adopt them”, “we want to solve the capital’s problems, they are only concerned with their own and their parties’ interests”: these are a few of his key phrases which point to the debate “for or against institutions”.
No high morals, only small virtues
In accordance with a carefully maintained anti-institutional and anti-elitist image, Borissov does not offer his voters superior moral anchors or milestones, but rather, a series of marketable small virtues: extreme individualism, combined with loyalty and devotion, sternness towards powerful rogues, patronising condescension towards the weak, personal commitment to each separate problem - “I will stand by every pothole until they fill it up.” He has no desire to form attitudes, he uses off-the-shelf preconceptions. He requires no effort from voters, he does nothing to make them feel inferior, but rather offers solutions without their involvement, and the supreme mobilisation required of them is to cast their vote for him and then leave it all to him.
He has no memory, he forgets the big gaffes and the minor embarrassments he has no shame or the sense of guilt, thus easily adopting identities and changing (for example, he recently began talking about education as the key to success).
You will not hear a bad word from him directed at the dignitaries he used to guard or work for, whether Todor Zhivkov, Simeon Saxe Coburg, Georgi Purvanov (who made him a general) or the interior ministry. “Say something nice or nothing at all about the interior ministry” has been his principal maxim since he left the institution. He may be a political conformist and seek recognition on the right - he likes to say “there are way too many generals on the left” by way of clarifying his political preferences. He may behave at times as a rightist populist, but he never derides minorities. He is friends with the Roma, who see in him an attractive spirit of belittling the institutional order.
Ineffective, only representative
As he is never entirely integrated into the institution he dwells in, Borissov suggests a biography: he does not try to fit into the world; he tries to take it over. Along with the politics of emotions, he offers politics dependent upon the demand for a certain type of biography, which allows large groups of people outside the narrow elite and the fragile middle class to see themselves in him. With a fitting biography, and a low-status past, Borissov may not have a project for the future, but he offers representation in the present, hence his ability to win elections without a platform or governing team. All he needs is good marketing which quenches the collective thirst for biography so that he can serve as an example for social mobility. It is not by accident that it was his team that recently won the “political PR of the year” and “politician of the year” awards.
Our society
This is of course not so much a profile of the general, but rather a portrait of the society which likes the general and which, much like him, is in the throes of a return to normalcy and institution building. Following years of heightened political dynamism, which led to the disintegration of the totalitarian state, this country witnessed the beginning of economic growth, as well as a broader, although partial return to normalcy. It has caused, however, more gloom than bourgeois complacence or reformist enthusiasm. Our society is fragmented, the state is weak and institutions, parties and elites are doomed to a lack of trust.
The process of stabilisation lacks a collective project and the more the state falls into institutional ruts, the stronger the influence of anti-systemic players, peripheral to the institutions, will be. Membership in the European Union brings no hope; however, there is no alternative project, and so Europe is still acceptable. The EU is more of a limitation for us or, as shown in a recent study, it is like a “rut, a yoke on the neck and a staff in the groin”.
Nowadays, publicity is strongly personalised, which - remember the IMF personified by Anne McGuirk or the EU by Gunther Verheugen - is certainly not an effect of the return to normalcy. During the entire transition period, voters declared they want personalities, while de facto until 2001 they voted primarily for parties. It is only these days that our society seeks personalities as an alternative to parties and heroic gestures as an alternative to institutions. This is largely due to the establishment of informal networks, to the detriment of and in symbiosis with institutional interaction, constantly blurring the line between official and personal. Material wealth is already an established value, while the legitimate scenarios to attain it are few and far between. Society consists of various peripheries, in opposition to a constricted elite center, and there is no love lost between those.
This social profile places the elite before a qualitatively new choice: to either change the way it sees politics, itself and society, or leave this country doomed to permanent instability and in the hands of ever more powerful anti-systemic players, including Borissov, the fighter against the status quo who in fact consolidates it. And he is not necessarily the worst choice.
Do you want to know more?
An in-depth study of anti-systemic sentiments in this country is provided in the Open Society Institute’s project report entitled The State of Society, 2003. The Centre for Social Practices examines a similar set of issues in Bulgaria in the 21st Century: Whither Go We?, Sofia 2002. Two other documents of merit are the annual report issued by the Global Bulgaria Initiative and entitled Social Optimism and Economic Development, Sofia 2004, and a final report issued by New Bulgarian University and the Bulgarian School of Politics, Bulgarians’ European Projects, Sofia 2005.
Extracted from an article written for Foreign Policy magazine Bulgaria, February-March 2006.
