The Vanishing of the Russophiles
It is not enough just to hear the people’s voice; you also need to listen to it.
Bulgarian politicians had to learn that simple lesson the hard way in the European elections, where they put too much weight on what pollsters were saying without really trying to decipher what lay behind the numbers. Polls are tricky things. If you look at them with biased eyes, you are easily fooled.
Actually, the lessons were two. The first, simpler one is as old as time: don’t believe your own propaganda.
Most Bulgarian pollsters had predicted a hard-fought battle between the opposition center-right GERB and the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party, with a small lead for the Socialists. Only two agencies, Alpha Research and Exacta, showed GERB with a comfortable lead.
Yet election night held some explosive surprises. GERB won with an 11.5 percent margin while the Socialists barely held on to second place.
After the results came in, GERB’s leader, Boyko Borisov, railed against the “lies of the pollsters.” There were accusations of propaganda, deliberate manipulation, and bribery. The main culprits admitted their mistakes, but no one could absolve the politicians of their sins. Writing in the 24 Hours newspaper, journalist Valery Naydenov noted that this government had dissolved the National Institute for the Study of Public Opinion – the former employees of which then founded Exacta, one of the few agencies that got things right.
“Is it worth fighting the truth?” Naydenov asked. “If you hit it, it will bite back.”
The second lesson is more complicated and much more interesting: hubris is often followed by nemesis. Russophiles, so confident in the campaign, vanished at the ballot box.
When the Ukrainian crisis erupted, pollsters measured unexpectedly high Russophile sympathies in Bulgarian society – 60 percent, 70 percent, even more. The explanations varied, from historical and religious ties with Russia to anti-Americanism and dissatisfaction with Bulgaria’s experience inside the European Union. One poll was particularly troubling, because it came from the respected Alpha Research. Asked about their alliance preferences, 40 percent chose the EU. An astonishing 22 percent said Bulgaria should join the Eurasian Economic Union of Vladimir Putin.
Politicians took note. The nationalist Ataka (Attack) party, shaken by scandals surrounding its short-tempered leader, Volen Siderov, rebranded itself a pure Russophile force. It supported Putin’s every move, accused Ukrainian authorities of fascism, and even opened its European election campaign in Moscow. The campaign’s finale featured a performance in Sofia by Lyube, Putin’s favorite band. Ominously, the party video announcing the concert had a word pronounced in Russian: “Davai za Ataka”! (“Go for Ataka”!).
Siderov’s move was shocking. The National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria, Ataka’s former ally and now its main nationalist rival, was left with no option but to take a Russophobe stance to differentiate itself. But all other nationalist parties, the Communists, and one green party tried to out-Volen Volen, blowing the pro-Russia pipe to crescendo. In TV debates barely anyone dared say anything against Putin, lest the other participants jump all over him.
Yet the hardest lot fell to the Socialists, traditionally the main Russophile force in Bulgaria. As a ruling party whose chairman, Sergei Stanishev, also leads the European Socialists in Brussels, it could not afford to be vocally pro-Putin. Socialist Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin was even one of the first foreign officials to meet with the leader of Ukraine’s interim government.
However, the Socialists compensated during the campaign, which was dominated by a pro-Russia message.
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