GODOT* is coming but is there anyone waiting for him?
date: 09.11.2000
* A pun: The Civil Alliance of Democratic Organisations (CADO) is spelt in Bulgarian as GODOT.
Last Sunday, the St. George Movement organised a working meeting, which prepared the grounds for the establishment of a Civil Alliance of Democratic Organisations (CADO). The above intention brought up the issue about the role and importance of political parties, on the one hand, and of civil movements, on the other. The latter were labelled by the government as being a dangerous threat to democracy.
The desire of the representatives of civil organisations to take up the role of defenders of public interests is commendable. By definition, the purpose of such organisations is to protect the interests of the citizens by influencing policy-making, rather than by being policy-makers themselves. Unfortunately, similar to most public undertaking in Bulgaria, the initiative was marked by an immediate paradox.
The future CADO will gather actors from the political scene that the public has come to know well over the last ten years. That fact alone immediately questions the founders' ability to remain close to the public instead of distancing themselves from it by getting directly involved in the political process. What is more, from the very start the future alliance proclaimed its sincere intention to take up the place of the political elite that has discredited itself. Just like any newly founded organisation, it declared that it enjoys a vast public support.
For their part, the citizens whose interests the squabbling public figures claim to defend are far from certain that they can rely on either of them. The vast majority (81 per cent) of the country's adult population trust only themselves for the protection of their rights and interests. The representatives of the private business are even more categorical: 88 per cent state they rely on themselves alone. The currently existing non-political organisations enjoy the confidence of a mere 5 per cent of the population.
On the other hand, public attitude to potential representatives of the third sector is not so negative. 15 per cent of the respondents believe that advancing the role of civil and line organisations would be the best way to resolve delayed administrative matters. However, even these 15 per cent (especially the representatives of the private sector) regard such structures more as lobbies than as policy-makers.
