Bulgarian society is faced with an important choice they have to make: who will govern the country and what will people want of the next government, and this in troubled times. The latest public opinion survey conducted by the Open Society Institute, Sofia shows how far we have traveled, whether we are happy with what has been achieved and what we expect the future to bring.

“The respondents say they are very unhappy with the key public sector services,” says Boyan Zahariev, Open Society Institute Programme Director.

“Top of the list is health care. Two thirds of citizens over 18 who have the right to vote say that things in health care have to change, that they are not happy with medical care in the country. Only a quarter talk about the labour market, employment and incomes, as well as the economic growth connected with them. Again one in four mentions education. I would like to note here that in previous surveys we have conducted health care was again top of the agenda. These are sector policies which parliament and most of all the new government will have to focus on.”

Boyan Zahariev adds that consensus as to which spheres are priority ones should not be confused with consensus on what has to change inside them exactly and whether we are prepared to pay the price. On such specific and at times painful issues our society is very much divided.

According to the survey 67 percent of people over 18 say that they have in some way felt the effects of the economic crisis. This is true of 80 percent of the poor and half of the 20 percent of the population who fall into the higher income bracket. Perhaps that is cause of the notorious Bulgarian pessimism, Boyan Zahariev says.

“We see this also in international surveys in answer to the question: Are you happy and content with your life?” he goes on to say. “There Bulgarians are so far down that the explanation is definitely not rooted only in the economic problems, I think this is due to our overblown ambitions. We want to live a normal life, but we also want to be like the wealthy countries of Europe. This creates the impression that we are far from the mark, that life in Bulgaria is bad. Our results show that in answer to the customary question asked in such surveys, two thirds of the respondents say they have been affected by the economic crisis and only one third that they are content with the lives they are leading. This question is also asked in pan-European surveys and the results show that three quarters of Europeans give a positive answer, i.e. they are content with their lives, as against one in three Bulgarians, which makes a wide margin.”

Social and economic pessimism in Bulgaria is combined with a strong sense of mistrust of institutions, which is definitely on the rise, the survey indicates. Sixty five percent of people aged over 18 say they have confidence in no more than two of the 15 key institutions or organizations (parliament, government, law court, prosecutor’s office, police, political parties etc.) Even the traditionally high confidence in the European institutions is now down. The countries where there is more corruption and instability have a tendency to trust outside institutions more than their own. Transposed on a European Union plane this means that the high degree of confidence in European institutions may well not be a sign of pro-European sentiments but of disillusionment with the deadlock in our own countries. What Bulgarian citizens are evidently unconvinced about is that the country’s membership of the EU has improved the way the country is being governed and the way the police, the judiciary, parliament and all leading public systems that depend on key institutions function.

English version: Milena Daynova