Host (Laura Indzhova): We are back in the plenary, rather on the political terrain, today with PR expert Maxim Behar. Hello and welcome.

Maxim Behar: Good afternoon.

Host: Ahead of the holidays and at the same time against the backdrop of what we are seeing in the plenary.

Maxim: I am watching with disgust, as I guess 9 out of 10 Bulgarians are.

Host: Is there no interest?

Maxim: I have no interest because as are doing all people who understand at least a little bit about politics, coalitions and the lack of such. I personally think that if you beat up one person on the street then you show strength, but if you attack some people in parliament then you show weakness. Firstly, because it is public and secondly because that is a place where decisions should be made, not a place where people should brawl. This is not acceptable in modern politics. On the other hand, I can see that in Bulgaria there is an abrupt change of characters in the rank list of who is who. And a lot of people who were number one or were super stars are starting to come off the stage and others are appearing or wanting to appear. That kind of leads to turmoil. Unfortunately, we here in our own doghouse know these things and we know who's who. It's like if you watch this thing from Paris or London and you're like, "What's going on? What are these savages?" We have seen this in other parliaments, similar scenes.

Host: Well in the UK, we've seen it too.

Maxim: Not in the UK they don't fight so much. There are heated debates there.

Host: I want to tell you that through my journalistic analysis of what happened yesterday there is something good about it for me. And that is that it was seen. That can be a point of reference to all the voters. Could this be a positive response? If we get into your PR expertise, can we analyze the behavior of politicians as a pre-made strategy to any extent? Is there a PR strategy in your view in this behavior of politicians?

Maxim: Voters have long since stopped looking at parliament as some kind of model by which they should behave. I have been telling the story for years that politics, and not only in Bulgaria, is handled by people who can do nothing else in real life. And it is quite normal when you go to the polling station or when you watch debates on TV to vote for whoever is there. Like we in our companies appoint people who are available at the moment. We choose them depending on what skills they have and then we teach and develop them.   Unfortunately, in parliament we can't teach anybody. And those who didn't go to vote are glad they didn't.

Host: And shouldn't the response to this picture be the opposite? Should that motivate us to get out and vote?

Maxim: A lot of the voters would also fight if they were in the parliament, it’s only human. It's not a drama where some got into a fight with some.

Host: Honestly for me the problem is not even the fight. Isn't the bigger problem that parliament is not working?

Maxim: Parliament is working with politicians who have no vision of what they want Bulgaria to be, because Bulgaria is going through a very difficult and painful transformation now during an economic crisis and two wars. It is a great pity that they brought the abbreviation PR here. But this is extremely wrong because PR is in the business of creating positive news or explaining something that has happened in accessible language. The Vazrazhdane people had no other course of action because they are few and need to be very visible. Volen Siderov applied the same tactics ten years ago in parliament. SDS were in opposition in the early 1990s. Similarly, SDS then ruled by Philip Dimitrov and Ivan Kostov were in a very similar situation back then. That is not the problem. The problem is that Bulgaria needs to move forward. And we all want to see a better country and some more sensible actions. I open a parenthesis I am very pleasantly surprised by Prime Minister Denkov. I did not expect that a man who deals with science could have such iron nerves. If there are such people in Parliament who would say to themselves, it is nice to sit down and do a bit of work.

Host: Are there no such people?

Maxim: Well, obviously there aren't. Because even if there are they are very few and they are not heard, they cannot push their concepts. We see what is happening in the Metropolitan Municipal Council. Bulgaria is a super concentrated country and everything that happens is here in Sofia. This city is blocked now. This reflects what is happening in parliament. It is not so scary because we still have a good government we have some understanding, whether it is Euro-Atlantic or pro-democracy. There is an understanding that Bulgaria should be far away from Russia in all these processes.

Host: Since we are at the end of our conversation, I ask for last words.

Maxim: If we are coming to the end, since the holidays are coming up, I turn to your esteemed viewers. I wish them happy holidays and I wish them over the next 366 days not to look at Parliament, not to look at the things that are happening, but to do their work and concentrate only on what they are doing. If 6 000 000 Bulgarians fix one thing, all things in Bulgaria will be fixed I guarantee you. Happy holidays.

Host: Are we in for a leap year?

Maxim: Of course.

Host: Thank you and happy holidays to you. May the coming year be healthy and may there be peace.

 

You can watch the whole interview here.

You can also watch the whole interview on youtube.