The co-chairman of Democratic Bulgaria, Hristo Ivanov, sharply criticized the government for its actions about the corona crisis in the country. He announced the following:
„We do not have a systematic approach to one of the most important issues: limiting the spread.“
Ivanov described the case of the two deceased patients on the steps of a Plovdiv hospital as shocking and also as a result of the chaos in which the health workers were also placed:
“When there is no planning, humanity also begins to fail. That is why there must be planning. Therefore, there must be clear communication and a consistent strategy. This is a huge failure of Borissov.”
“No one is in favor of full closure, but I am not in favor of the complete carelessness that currently prevails”, Ivanov said, stressing that in other countries there are a number of intermediate strategies between the lack of measures and full closure, which, however, require something, which we do not have – clear data that allow the management of individual geographical units, individual population groups, individual schools, neighborhoods, etc. He added:
“When we now say that there will be no closure, the flip side of this coin is that we refuse to have measures to support these groups of the population, of business, of the workers who need to stay at home, they have to stay at home, they have no clients and need to receive some support.”
Ivanov also pointed out the lack of anti-crisis preparation for the Christmas holidays.
He said that the Christmas break can also be used for anti-epidemic purposes:
“From now on, people need to know whether they will travel or not, whether they will be able to return from abroad and under what conditions, how many people will be able to gather in one place, how the shops will work.”
The co-chair of Democratic Bulgaria also expressed concern about the lack of planning for the time when Bulgaria will have a vaccine available. He gave the example of the special headquarters set up by Belgium to plan vaccination.
“People are disoriented, they have fears, it has to be decided very clearly where, which groups of the population, how they will get this vaccine.”
As a serious deficit of the government, Ivanov pointed out the lack of an expert format in which the specialists could hold a discussion on what should happen and then talk.
On the issue of the state budget for the coming year, Ivanov commented that he sees seriously overestimated revenues, which means seriously increased expectations for expenditures. He called the budget „the kiss of Borissov’s death“, with which the prime minister, knowing that he was leaving, planted a budget bomb for the next government:
“There is no dispute that sectors should be supported in this crisis, but this should be done smartly, transparently, on the basis of some strategy. We do not see any of this in this budget. The money doesn’t reach the people.”
Ivanov asked:
“The big question is whether this resource, a huge resource, we will invest in the modernization of Bulgaria, will we invest it in finally having e-health?”
He recalled that Democratic Bulgaria published in the spring. 6-month plan for shock electrification of all processes that are necessary for Bulgaria to deal with the crisis.
“If this had been heard, accepted, today we would not be wondering how to write prescriptions and give directions. This is modernization. It saves lives. It makes lives and humanity – what you said – possible.”
On the issue of guaranteeing fair elections, Ivanov presented the application developed by Democratic Bulgaria, which will allow during the elections all protocols from advocates and observers to be uploaded in real time online, in parallel with the CEC process and compared for replacement. Ivanov explained:
“The protocol is the document on which ultimately depends whether your vote was counted correctly or not. And that’s why it’s so important. We create the platform. Every participant in the electoral process will be able to get on this platform, every political formation, non-governmental organization will be able to use it and this is the way for us to introduce real transparency in elections that will be extremely difficult, including because they take place in COVID-19.”
