Political Communication of Power and Opposition in Bulgaria: A Modern Projection

Abstract

Political communication between the authorities and the opposition within the multi-party system of the modern Republic of Bulgaria, in terms of social and functional values, supports the mobilization of intellectual potential, social energy and initiatives of both individual citizens and various social organizations, groups, while accelerating and deepening further development of society as a whole. The article presents the objective identification of political communication, specific features of public speeches and a double-natured projection of political speeches in the vertical perspective of “power - opposition”. While positioning Bulgaria by the criterion of the democracy degree in the communication between the authorities and the opposition, we should take into account the amplitude differences: the peculiarities of the transition of Bulgaria after 1989, political configuration (the influence of the two-party system), the specifics of the political confrontation of the communicative process, which reveals their intransigence and difference in the positions. The specific confrontation between the main political actors (SDS and BSP) has been developing by the very destructive axis of “democracy – communism”. The eight-year activity of the coalition government of SDS (20012009) has led to an extreme expansion. Its intensity has been somewhat leveled by the ideological identity, but still it couldn’t soften the communicative confrontation between the authorities and the opposition. The activities of the three governmental offices of the GERD Party and Prime Minister’s B. Borisov office since 2009 have clearly highlighted the new differences in communicative with the opposition, provoking systemic intransigence. The authorities’ resistance to the opposition sometimes borders on arrogance. This creates a closed circle in which the authorities and the opposition wait for each other’s actions to quickly react to the miscalculations of the enemy in the media space, to compromise in order to set the new rules.