Lots of people have been asking us these days about why we aren’t excited about these protests. As people flooded out into squares across the country people ask why we weren’t joining them and loudly shouting out ‘resign’. It may seem counterintuitive that when the streets were filled with demonstrators crying out for social change, members of Konflikt, an organisation dedicated to social change, wasn’t joining them.

To put it quite simply, we don’t think that any sort of real change is on offer. We will almost certainly have a new round of elections. Probably a new government will come, but will anything be different?

Elections are all too common in Bulgaria. We’ve had seven of them over the last four years. Nothing changes. Most people don’t bother to vote as they know that nothing changes. If people thought that it could make real change, then they would go out and vote. In 1990 full of hope in the new political system over 90% of the electorate turned out to vote. In the last election, less than 39% of people bothered. And why should they? Nothing changes. It only gets worse.

Current government in Bulgaria is a coalition of right wing parties led by GERB and supported by DPS. The protests were led by a coalition of right wing opposition parties led by Democratic Bulgaria and Contiunue the Change (PP-DB).
Was the government corrupt as the protestors say it was? Of course. Will a government of PP-DB be corrupt too? Of course, it would. The ‘struggle’ in the elections is over which party will get to steal the money, into whose pockets the cash will disappear.

The original demonstrations against the governments budget called by PP-DB mobilised large numbers of people. Last night’s demonstrations brought out even more. What they called people out over is the question. People were called out by PP-DB to reject increased taxes on businesses. Most people in this country, like in every country, however, don’t own businesses. Most people have jobs and work for someone else. So why were they dragged out into the street to fight in the interests of the bosses?

People don’t protest because they have a beautiful villa with a swimming pool in the garden. They protest because they are unhappy, and plenty of people in this country are unhappy. People are unhappy about the way inflation has eaten away into their spending power. They are also worried about what the Euro might do to this too. Young people are unhappy because they finish their education, and there are no decent jobs for them. Older people are unhappy because their kids are forced to leave the country to find a decent job. And people sit through this and watch politicians stealing money from the public and of course they are unhappy.

So when PP-DB called them out, they came. And when they came in huge numbers, it encouraged even more to come next time. People didn’t come out because they rejected proposals about tax changes in the budget. The overwhelming majority of them won’t have read the budget. It’s a complex document around 600 pages long. They came out and protested because they are not happy with their lives.

They were willing to make concessions. They withdrew their budget. The new budget though was certainly not an improvement. All governments need to generate money. If it can’t do it via tax increases, it will do it by spending cuts. When you come out onto the streets to fight for a more rightwing budget, you get a more rightwing budget. The new budget is one based upon attacking the working class and social spending.

Already nurses and young doctors have shown their opposition to what it contains. We support them in this. There’s more though. It’s a budget that attacks teachers. The formula which links teachers’ pay to the mean wage is to be abolished. It’s a budget that attacks community centres. They will see their funding cut. We don’t expect a budget drafted by any new government to be different.

So where does Konflikt stand on all this. We stand against Democratic Bulgaria and its protests and its attempt to become the new government, and against the ex-government and its new budget that tries to make working people pay for the crisis. Rather we stand with workers against attacks on wages and conditions always’. You won’t find us on the streets making a noise and calling for the government to resign. Rather you will find us standing alongside nurses at their protests out side their hospitals, and with any other group of workers that comes under attack from either this government, or the next.