Returnee from Czechia: Apathy on election day is surprising

One of the few Bulgarian compatriots who voted early this morning was Sasho Vakashinski, who recently returned to Bulgaria. He is from the village of Pokrovnik, near the town of Blagoevgrad (Southwestern Bulgaria).

“The first thing my family and I did today was go and vote. This is an obligation of every Bulgarian citizen, a right guaranteed by our Constitution. However, I see that many people do not exercise this right, both in Bulgaria and abroad”, Sasho Vakashinski said in an interview with Radio Bulgaria.

In previous elections, he voted in the Czech Republic. He says that the problem with polling stations abroad is logistical: people have to travel long distances because polling stations are located only in Prague, at the Bulgarian Embassy. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 Bulgarians live in the Czech Republic, spread across various cities throughout the country.

Sasho Vakashinski has been living in Bulgaria for over a year now and today he is surprised to see such apathy among his fellow Bulgarians on election day, even in their own homeland.

“I don’t know why people in Bulgaria make excuses and don’t go out to vote. Even if they were undecided in the first round and didn’t know whom to vote for, I don’t think voter turnout would be particularly high even in a runoff election. I’ve been back in Bulgaria for a little over a year now, and I can see people’s attitude toward elections. There is a complete indifference here. People no longer care about what will happen to Bulgaria. Everyone is clinging to some job that pays very little, with no concern for the country’s future. And the country’s future is the future of our children and grandchildren. What are we going to leave these children? A country that has fallen apart?”

“Unfortunately, Bulgarians living abroad are much more active in elections and think more about Bulgaria than those who live here”, our compatriot adds sadly. 

“Many people are returning to Bulgaria, not only from the Czech Republic, but also from the UK, Italy and Germany. Quite a few of them are young people who were not even born in Bulgaria. I hope that these people, who did not grow up in the country but hold Bulgarian citizenship, will be the ones to bring about change. You simply cannot have a minimum wage of just EUR 620 in Bulgaria! In the Czech Republic, for example, the minimum wage in Czech koruna is equivalent to EUR 800. But hardly anyone there actually works for the minimum wage, it is just a formal baseline. Starting salaries are higher. Recently, some friends of mine from the Czech Republic came to visit, and they were surprised to find that many products in Bulgarian shops were more expensive. And I am not even talking about restaurant prices. Everything that was priced in leva last year is now priced in euros, while wages here are half what they are in other countries. That is the reality. If someone had told me years ago that I would return to Bulgaria, I would have laughed at them. But here I am today, living in Bulgaria with my whole family. We now live in a village near Blagoevgrad. But even here in the city, there are no jobs. Most people work in Sofia, and to avoid paying rent there, they commute every day. The tragic thing about Bulgaria is the lack of employment opportunities. There are a few shops and perhaps a small workshop employing 10 to 20 people. For a regional city, that is practically nothing.”

After spending more than 15 years in the Czech Republic, Sasho Vakashinski has returned to Bulgaria only to find that, in his homeland, little seems to have changed.

“If you have no money here, you simply end up dying on the street. A minimum wage of just EUR 620 would be enough to bring people out onto the streets in protest in a country like France, for example. But we are a nation that has fallen asleep, despite our glorious past. Still, I hope we will have a glorious future, too! We Bulgarians may be slow to wake up, but once we do, nothing can stop us. That is what I’m hoping for”, said Sasho Vakashinski.

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov