The presidential circus: we pay for the vulgarity on the airwaves!
“Bulgaria wants provocation, I have given it to her”, presidential candidate Vanya Velikova said, quoted in a report on the start of the campaign. For a political program, this is sparse. For advertising one’s participation, it is quite enough. Someone decided what Bulgaria needed, delivered it, and expects gratitude in the form of a state position.
BNT announced more than 2,000 minutes of free airtime for the presidential campaign, including during prime time. Separately, the state allocated media packages for the participants designated by the CEC. Thus, the personal desire to be noticed gains access to something far too valuable: the attention of an entire country and the opportunity for publicly funded advertising.
Free for the candidate sounds wonderful. The taxpayer simply has to get used to the fact that in this sentence, he is the person in the fine print outside the parentheses.
We will clarify their statesmanship after the commercials…
There is a useful frankness in Velikova’s statement… Provocation is presented as a fulfilled public duty. The assumption is that if people are watching, they have received what was necessary. By that logic, every loud quarrel outside an entrance is a civic initiative that has not yet found a sponsor.
A stage career in itself does not prevent political preparation. Self-promotion, however, is no substitute for it. When a candidate presents a lack of restraint as an advantage, voters have reason to inquire about the presence of other qualities. The presidency presupposes decisions in which brakes are sometimes more useful than a “whistle.”
On October 2, Atanas Stefanov, a vice-presidential candidate, used his appearance on “The Day Begins” to call for action against people because of their sexual orientation and to make defamatory claims against the patriarch. The CEC establishes a violation of the Election Code and orders that an official violation report be drawn up.
That is quite a statement of intent for work in the presidency:
…to specify at the very outset which Bulgarians you cannot stand. Very practical. It spares them the hope that you will ever represent them.
On October 16, Boris Anzov declared homosexual people a threat to national security and added a vulgar epithet in a free debate on BNT 2. The CEC’s decision of October 20 establishes a violation and provides for an official violation report to be drawn up.
Here is how easily the complex world can be explained: choose a group of people, declare it dangerous, and you are done with national security. There is no need for analysis, preparation, or the tiresome effort of proving anything. Prejudice arrives with a ready-made answer and almost no demands on its author.
That same day, Ventsislav Angelov’s interview on BNT’s morning program was terminated after warnings and the repeated use of an insulting epithet. According to the report on his appearance his final remark was “I anathematize you!“.
The man is running for president, but when faced with difficulties in an interview, he also assumes spiritual authority. All that remains is to find out whether, if asked about the budget, he would declare a crusade against the calculator.
The petition is there. Recommendations for the job are missing
Appearances like these turn the issue of selection from a legal exercise into very earthly outrage. We are offered people for the highest state office, and we are expected to gratefully appreciate the fact that their paperwork has been completed.
The registration requirements check citizenship, age, residency, and the other legal conditions. An independent ticket must have the support of at least 2,500 voters. Competence, judgment, and an attitude toward citizens remain outside the certificate. Turning 40 proves that time has passed. How it was used is a separate biographical detail.
This is precisely where the parties and initiative committees owe an explanation. They put forward specific people, stand behind their names, and ask the rest of us to entrust them with state authority. Therefore, they should be able to point to something more than the candidate’s ability to attract attention.
What experience does the person have? What decisions have they made? Do they understand the office? Can they withstand a question that is not a compliment? These things can be checked publicly before the candidacy receives its solemn television packaging.
The signature beneath a nomination is a statement of political judgment. If the candidate then behaves like someone who has accidentally ended up in front of a live camera, those who nominated them have no grounds for hiding behind the registration procedure. They put the person forward. Let them explain exactly what they recognized in them.
Respect for the viewer is also part of pluralism!
Television performs a small ritual of legitimation. It places the person in a studio, displays the office they are contesting, and gives them a host and airtime. In this way, the candidate borrows part of the media’s authority. On screen, even the most irresponsible claim can look like a position worthy of serious discussion, especially if no one asks for evidence.
That is why equal access must come with equally unpleasant questions. A candidate can receive their minutes and still spend them explaining themselves. There is no democratic obligation for their television appearance to be pleasant.
You promise to fix incomes, identify the presidential power with which you will do it. You accuse someone, show the grounds for the accusation. You talk about a conspiracy, answer who, when, and with what evidence. After the third attempt to escape into a global conspiracy, the host has every professional justification for bringing you back to the question asked.
Ending Angelov’s interview is an example of a necessary boundary. The CEM also supports an immediate editorial response to hostile and discriminatory speech. This right must be exercised confidently. Studios have hosts so that a conversation can be conducted; otherwise, one securely mounted microphone would be enough.
Responsibility continues after the program. An editorial team that cuts out the ugliest remark and distributes it as a funny moment gives the participant more publicity. It may add an outraged headline. The service remains the same.
Twenty thousand euros do not become imaginary because the candidate is comical
In the CEC’s decision on the media packages four parties and twenty initiative committees entitled to €20,451.68 including VATare listed. They include the party that nominated Angelov and Stefanov, and Anzov’s initiative committee.
The total for these 24 packages is €490,840.32 , calculated on the basis of the participants listed in the decision. This is the value of the right granted; the amounts actually used must be established from the contracts and payments.
The rules provide for the CEC to pay media outlets for approved and completed services. The funds come from the state budget. The candidate receives the opportunity for media exposure, while the provider receives the payment. THIS IS SEPARATE FROM THE FREE APPEARANCES ON PUBLIC TELEVISION…
It is precisely this orderly framework that deserves attention. Vulgarity can appear in a fully organized administrative environment, with deadlines, contracts, and accounting. The absence of an illegal transfer in itself does not answer the question of what public benefit we received in exchange for the money spent.
The purpose of the assistance is to enable people to compare political proposals. Turning the campaign into a personal advertising season defeats that purpose. The taxpayer is under no obligation to find such use acceptable simply because it is described with the respectable expression “media service”.
Citizens are often asked to view budget money as belonging to someone else. The expression “the state pays” does a wonderful job: as if the state had a profession of its own from which it earned extra money in the evenings by “fucking” privately. Then the same citizen is told how carefully money must be spent, and they screw him by taking his second-pillar pension to patch up the state budget…
Elections can be lost. The advertising remains
For a candidate whose goal is name recognition, a poor election result does not exhaust the reckoning. The name has passed through the national airwaves. Clips have been circulated. Invitations, reactions, and searches have followed. The office may remain out of reach, but personal publicity has grown.
This is the perverse incentive: The scandal brings an immediate reward, while the consequences proceed through administrative channels. It is still being clarified which official report should be drawn up, while the clip is already working in the participant’s favor.
There is also a quieter political cost. Next to someone who insults half the studio, any sufficiently composed candidate begins to look almost statesmanlike… The bar drops to the ability to finish an interview without a tirade. Preparation, integrity and meaningful ideas can wait… first, let us congratulate the person for using normal sentences.
In this way, the spectacle also harms the assessment of everyone else. Voters are invited to sigh with relief at the bare minimum of decency and accept it as an exceptional quality.
Our silence is quite loud…
We swear at the television, send the clip to a friend and make fun of it in the comments. The next time, we recognize the participant immediately. He has gained an audience, while we have gained the brief satisfaction of having understood him.
In this exchange, the most uncomfortable work remains undone. Who put him forward and why? What followed the established violation? What services were contracted on his behalf? How much was paid and to whom? Answering these questions requires more effort than sharing thirty seconds of vulgarity.
Mockery is an easy form of superiority. It allows us to feel smarter than the candidate while helping distribute his message. An especially convenient deal for him.
The real challenge to a campaign of this kind begins where we refuse to accept fame as a qualification, insult as courage and impeccable paperwork as a sufficient result. Those who organized the candidacy must defend their choice. Television stations must test the claims. Established violations must be followed through to their real outcome.
There is also a specific date for the financial aspect. The Bulgarian National Audit Office points to December 4, 2026 as the deadline for reports on the campaign for the October 25 vote, with publication within 15 days thereafter. At that point, attention should shift from faces to recipients, contracts and amounts. That is where it will become clear how much each participant’s media presence cost. The election result may be modest, but still, I think… the invoice deserves to be checked down to the last euro cent.