Sawt Falasteen - Three years after giant protests, Bulgarians' hopes dashed

Hoping it would be a first step to cleaning up public life, the protesters unleashed a spiral of elections.

As voters head to the polls Sunday for the fifth time in two years, the optimism felt by many of the demonstrators has proved short-lived.

- The pessimists -

Despite his frustration with the system, construction engineer Konstantin Varbenov, 57, said he would "absolutely" vote again.

Even so, he sees little chance of a stable government to end the string of interim cabinets appointed by pro-Russian President Rumen Radev, himself the target of recent protests.

"We are disappointed mainly by the fact that the people don't know what they want... They like to be beaten on the head, to be stolen from," said Varbenov, referring to the continued support for Borisov's conservative GERB party, which protesters accuse of graft.

"I don't know what awaits us," he shrugged, lamenting the rise of pro-Russian ultra-nationalists in the Balkan nation with historically close ties to Moscow.

His two sons have already moved abroad, part of an exodus from the EU member by those seeking a better life. Bulgaria has lost 1.5 million people in two decades.

Social researcher Aleksandra Kirova, 41, is so disillusioned she is not even planning to vote anymore.

"The political market offers products that don't taste good to me," she said wryly. "I can't think of any party that has a vision of what Bulgaria should look like in five, 10 or 20 years."

- The optimists -

Puppet theatre director Mila Kolarova, 42, and her partner Vladimir Vasilev, 45, have not lost their spirit of resistance since AFP talked to them on the 100th day of the 2020 "revolution", recently taking part in protests against Radev.

"I am more of an optimist... I think that we are moving in the right direction even if slowly and the hard way. Once woken up, people won't calm down easily," Kolarova said.

She has pinned her hopes on a new coalition of anti-corruption parties, We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, to bring out voters against Borisov's GERB.

Vasilev said the couple would continue to push for change no matter the result.

"It's like love, once you fall in love nobody can convince you that this is not going to work," he said.

Despite their tiredness, "we will fight as long as we have to," Kolarova added.

Niya Gicheva, a 45-year-old lawyer, attended all 116 days of the protests, which she called an "awakening".

But she said it had been "awfully hard" to remain optimistic since.

"Unfortunately, the unity of the protests did not transfer into political life... the participants divided," she said.

"Real change has begun and it will happen, but too slowly and painfully... It's a process," she said.

I.Matar--SF-PST