Chapter 89: General Election 2
People like Karl, who can see the real thing, are still in the minority. Many people still dream that they will be able to reverse the trend by the elections and lead Bulgaria back to the bright path of "freedom".
One of the best of these is the Bulgarian New Liberal Party, a new party born out of the Liberal Party and has carried over the vast majority of the Liberal Party.
Maybe it was so badly cursed by the public that it was forced to change its form. Although most of Bulgaria could not tell the difference between the two and still cursed as usual.
The current party leader, Karsten Ivanov, was originally Stamborov's rival in the party and had been under suppression before. It was only after Stamborov's fall that he was pushed out by the Liberals, who were lost in the storm, as a last resort.
Although Karsten lost to Stambolov in the previous power struggle, his influence in the Liberal Party is very similar. As a result, after he took power, he quickly secured the stability of the Liberal Party. Besides a part of Stambolov's hardcore leaving, others basically stayed.
After Stambolov's fall, the Liberal Party, despite its shame, remains the number one party in Bulgaria compared to several other governments that have been suffering from major losses.
As for the change of Ferdinand's cabinet, Karsten was pleased with it. However, he left behind the Liberal Party and formed an interim cabinet alone, which was resented ten thousand times.
However, because the Liberals were already unable to protect themselves, there were major factions against each other, and there were many rival political parties outside looking in. Karsten also did not have the energy to create trouble for Ferdinand. When he finished dealing with internal conflicts, he had to tear up with other political forces, and all kinds of problems have not been settled by now.
The struggle between Bulgarian political parties has led to the collapse of their power. Initially, during the period of Stambolov, the Liberals had a blood feud with other parties. There was no room for peace between the two sides long ago.
In the smart people's minds, they understand that if the major political parties continue to fight like this, everyone will be finished sooner or later. Karsten had many secret talks with other political party leaders in an attempt to ease the conflict.
However, the Liberals are willing to discuss peace, but other parties are not willing to it. Even if the head of the party can ease the ties for the situation, the people below will not agree to it!
It is not possible to resolve the blood feud, especially for those who lost their friends and relatives during the period of Stambolov. Since the Stambolov cabinet is now in exile abroad, it is not wrong to blame the Liberals.
After a few years of struggle with each other, all of them are greatly wounded. At the same time, Ferdinand has issued a series of bills to restrict the number of political parties, so it is even harder to move forward.
Every major party power in Bulgaria now can be said to be no more than ten percent. Even now, the first major-party - the Bulgarian New Freedom Party has less than 3,000 members.
Compared to other parties, the New Liberal Party maintains a strong enough advantage both in terms of numbers and in terms of influence.
As the saying goes, the people who have authority are not the ones who are in charge. The first major party that wins the parliamentary elections and gains the majority of seats are given the mandate to form the government, as is the practice in Bulgaria.
However, it is evident that this time will be an exception. The party that has won the previous election didn't get less than 50 percent of the seats in the parliament, so it is, of course, logical to form a cabinet.
At the internal meeting of the New Liberal Party, Karsten was now speaking in a great voice: "Gentlemen, the opportunity we have been waiting for for so long has come! By winning this election, we will once again return to the center of Bulgaria!!!"
...
This meeting ended with a roar of cheers from the neo-liberals. As if they had already won and had even prepared a plan for future action.
No matter what the people thought, the Bulgarian parliamentary elections were held. Ferdinand invited the Bulgarian media to participate in oversight of the elections. Sixty-eight election sites were set up in the country's major electoral districts.
The election started smoothly, this time with anonymous voting. Eligible voters wrote down their choice of candidate on a prepared slip of paper and put it in the designated box.
Once the voting was completed, they opened it on the spot in full public view. The respected local elders were invited to take charge of the vote counting and signing the ballot to ensure fairness and equity as much as possible.
Is Ferdinand's moral integrity that high? Of course not. He is not a freedom and democracy fighter. In order to weaken as much as possible the party people who might give him trouble in the future, the government also released the profiles of the candidates before the election.
All of them are with real evidence. The use of the real-life plot is treated equally, and no one can say anything. Besides the basic personal information, it also includes the activities of the social groups that have taken part in, what contributions have been made to the country, etc. It looks clear at a glance.
The surface is fair and equitable, but it can be hard for political party people who are all from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. Although they have now changed their vests, the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have left too deep an impression on people. Many people look at their profiles. They hate them so much that they do not hesitate to vote for their opponents in their hands.
Not only did political party people take a hit, but many pro-democracy people didn't reap the benefits either. The main thing is the column of contribution to the country, which is basically helping people to vote. If there were no primary bias, people would easily vote for people who have contributed to society.
All of these are real contributions that can be widely recognized by society. For example, the usual comments about the world and the past and present, these controversial ones cannot be defined but only recorded in history. Suddenly, they seem to be less useful to this country than an ordinary worker.
Ferdinand's surprise attack caught many people off guard. However, it made it difficult to object directly, and it was totally open and public.
Karsten is now in a bad mood. In his opinion, Ferdinand is a typical overkill, although there has been one before.
In the case at the time, Ferdinand did not kill all but only expelled the Stambolov cabinet, and he understood the stance aside.
It includes the previous mental illness found for members of Stambolov's cabinet, which Karsten fully supports. Of course, these must be true. Otherwise, how could the Liberal Party get back in one piece?
There was no need to look at the election results. Karsten knew he was out. What about the 10,000 people killed out there in a mass tomb outside Sofia? No matter how hard he worked before and how respected he was, the Sofia public, who had survived the White Terror, could not support a core figure of the former Liberal Party in any way.
In the 19th century, when they poorly passed information, Karsten, who lost a power struggle within his party early on, has not had the chance to enter the political arena. There are really not many ordinary people who know about him. If the custom was to follow, who would reveal the old story?