Why I can't support Irina Bokova for UN Secretary-General

 България официализира кандидатурата на Ирина Бокова за генерален секретар на ООН. Нормално, това предизвика бурни реакции, както на радост, гордост и патриотизъм, така и на недоверие и разочарование към правителството. В следващите редове ще се опитам да обясня защо личното ми мнение е, че България не трябваше да номинира г-жа Бокова, и че лично аз няма да я подкрепя в тази й кандидатура.

___

Which qualities of Ms. Bokova do I support?

Her outspoken critics cite her communist past, the privileged position in which she grew up, as well as specific crimes committed by her father. I do not believe that children should be tried for their parents. On the contrary, this is a method used in the Soviet Union, and after 1944 - massively in Bulgaria, where the brutal crackdown on class enemies often turns into settling personal scores. For decades, the main sign of what you cannot work, what you cannot study, etc. is the family tree - which is a downright medieval understanding of justice. I have not heard her take a specific condemnatory position towards the socialist regime, apart from pro-forma justifications of how the regime was "like that". What exactly, it is not clear.

This is essentially my first major problem with Ms. Bokova’s candidacy – the lack of clearly stated principles and positions. Look for the specifics that I think are important. You won’t find anything that would confront her with anyone, even though all global and regional players, from the US to Russia, have something to criticize every day. It is clear that the quality of “slipperiness” can be useful in diplomacy, and the need to get along with everyone is certainly a plus when competing for the leadership of the UN.

But, perhaps also coming from a family of diplomats, with a father and uncle who were ambassadors to European countries, I have seen since I was a child that you can be a diplomat in another way – with field work, openness, establishing ties between countries, which helps immensely in trade and peaceful relations between nations. I don’t know what in Ms. Bokova’s career convinces me that she is capable of this type of work, not to mention the undeniably sad role as Foreign Minister in the government of Zhan Videnov and her candidacy for Vice President, which is not widely discussed, when over 2.5 million Bulgarians voted for Petar Stoyanov in the hope of a change of course that Ms. Bokova so fervently defended.

The huge, unique and unrepeatable chance

To Bulgarian society, Ms. Bokova's candidacy is presented as a "huge chance" and a "golden opportunity" for Bulgaria to enter the world stage. I'm trying to understand what's so unique about it, and I'm clearly missing it.

The fact is that our country rarely makes it into the daily broadcasts. We are neither a leading economy, nor a terrifying dictatorship from which heartbreaking news comes. And in this regard, many people see an opportunity in this representative role for Bulgaria to improve and strengthen its image. But, I hasten to ask, does anyone seriously consider Ghana a better organized country than Côte d'Ivoire, because of Kofi Annan? And what positives did Burma/Myanmar derive from Secretary General U Thant, since its democracy has only been taking shape in recent years? If we are going to descend to the level of stereotypes, when you hear South Korea, do you think of Ban Ki-moon, or of dozens of innovative companies, technologies and a bunch of other things? Excluding a latent media presence, the nationality of the UN Secretary General is, in itself, at best, a small bonus, but nothing even close to what party greats in the "left" spectrum of Bulgaria describe with pathos. (Bracket: the alarm bell should go off when its most ardent defenders, not ordinary sympathizers driven by patriotism, are Georgi Parvanov, the man who has tried several times to enslave the Bulgarian economy with striking energy projects, and his close sociologists, as well as others, among whom there is one thing in common: they strictly follow the Kremlin's policy.)

If we accept for a moment the thread that Ms. Bokova will influence our image, have you ever thought about how negative this influence could be, and not "unique"? In a time of increasing international isolation and aggressive, undiplomatic behavior of its main patron - Moscow, I personally see no reason to be proud that a leading diplomatic figure from Bulgaria is the "Kremlin" candidate. On the contrary, I would be ashamed of this reference to the past, when the People's Republic of Bulgaria was for many years the most loyal partner of the USSR.

Specifically, I find Bokova's presence during the parade in Moscow, when the leaders of freer countries boycotted Russian aggression in 2014, a diplomatic blunder. She could have at least spared us the absurd symbol of Russian media propaganda, the St. George ribbon, but she chose to legitimize Vladimir Putin's power. To me, this is a strong signal of dependence.

Please do not think that I am automatically against Bokova because she was a communist. Indeed, I consider communism to be a fundamentally worse ideology and version of a social order compared to a free economy. I have communist friends whom I try to convince of the advantages of capitalism. If even today there are lucky ones who think that communism can work, that is their right and they deserve the freedom to dream. But this is about a representative of a specific regime, personified by the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, which clearly failed – socialism in Bulgaria in 1944-1989. And I really see no reason for a representative of that regime, who has not given any signals that it has reformed, to be a source of pride for me. Ms. Bokova should very clearly answer and describe her principles if she thinks of attracting wider support, and I do not think that she should deserve the support of Bulgarians for nothing.

____

And a few words about the UN itself. An organization that includes the largest dictatorships in the world, including the few remaining countries that define themselves as socialist, cannot be particularly efficient and successfully defend basic values that are considered important in Bulgaria and in the Western world in general: individual freedom, market economy, basic human rights. Instead, it can express "concern" and sleep through huge human tragedies such as civil wars, diseases and disasters, without actually doing much to control them.
And perhaps, if we are "lucky" to see her in action, Ms. Bokova will skillfully handle the expression of concern, but the risk of this post being taken over by a country that is in a toxic combination of financial crisis, increasingly stifled liberalism, and which behaves hooliganically on the international scene (which costs thousands of human lives) seems unjustified to me and can only hinder the realization of the priorities that the UN has set for itself on the topic of international peace, cooperation, and all liberal values of equality, which are being horribly trampled on in only 2 of the 5 members of the Security Council - Russia and China, and in Russia alone they are getting worse every year.

In summary, the UN itself needs urgent reform to become more efficient and play any positive role in the world. More and more people are fed up with politicians and civil servants at the national and supranational levels whose salaries seem unjustified for the work they (don't) do.
And that's why I would like the UN to be led by a person of principle. If it's going to be an Eastern European, I prefer it to be someone who helped win more freedom for his people in the post-Soviet transition. And if the Bulgarian candidate doesn't meet this condition, I prefer it to be a foreigner.

Did you like it? Take a minute to support the EKIP on Patreon!