It's election time in Bulgaria, which means that the streets of Silistra are decorated with the posters of the nameless horde of potential parliament members. Bulgaria has list-based elections, so while you do see and hear people's names tossed around a little, campaigning to the masses mostly involves pounding an election card number into people's heads and holding many, many concerts.
Since I don't really read the Bulgarian newspapers and have followed the campaign only through the posters, concerts, and coversations with friends, I haven't gotten any kind of idea about the platforms of most of the parties. I have, however, learned a few things. I've learned that most Silistrans don't care about the election to the point where they are knowledgable about more than one or two parties. I've learned that the socialists will win the most seats because people want change of some kind, old people will vote more than the young, and the socialists know the artists their voters want to see in concert.
Two nights ago, the center of town was packed full of people gathered to watch the BCP (The socialist party) throw a concert headlined by Vesselin Marinov. He may not be the biggest star in Bulgaria, but he sings Bulgaria's comfort music. His videos feature him and his "friends" gathered around a fireplace singing his folksy songs and clinking glasses of wine and rakiya. And everybody is dressed in knit sweaters. He's the star none of my students really like, but when I ask about him they always say he's their grandparents' favorite. And if a large body of people are going to vote for BCP, that large body will most likely be the nostalgic, communism-adoring, Bulgarian elderly.
The local party, "Let's Live Bulgaria," or something like that, put on a concert featuring Galya, Silistra's homegrown pop folk star. The currently ruling party's concert featured Lilya Ivanova, an older icon which seemed like a fine conservative touch. Not one of these concerts featured anything more about the parties than their names, posters and slogans, and not one of the stars I've seen took time out of their performance to give a Bono-like speech about their patron party's ideas.
So that's what I'm left with basically. All of the bars around Silistra will close at midnight tonight and nobody will be selling alcohol until the end of Sunday. Needless to say, there is a run on the beer refrigerators in every store in town. And if you planned your wedding for this weekend without thinking of the consequences, you're more or less out of luck.
Fun times ahead. I can't wait for Sunday.
Posted by Rob at June 24, 2005 08:06 PM