FactualIn Pernik, deprived of running drinking water, voters “want things to change”, but the candidates are struggling to embody the renewal.
Pernik is less than thirty minutes by car from the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, but it is yet another world. A gigantic district heating plant decrepit and eaten by vegetation is planted at the entrance to the city. It is still in business. And even in the toilets of the town hall, the inhabitants collect the basins of water. “We keep them in memory of the crisis of last year, when we ran out of water and some experts said we had to evacuate the city”, explains the mayor, Stanislav Vladimirov. “But the water crisis is 80% over, in particular thanks to government assistance”, promises this elected socialist, by extolling the role of the conservative Prime Minister, Boïko Borissov, however a political adversary.
“He did his job well”, explains the city councilor, who welcomes in particular the millions of euros suddenly released to urgently build an aqueduct to bypass the dry water tank. It was well worth a little infidelity to the Bulgarian Socialist Party. A few weeks before the legislative elections organized on Sunday April 4, Mr. Vladimirov appeared alongside Mr. Borissov during a visit to the new water purification station currently under construction. “The opposition must also drink the best water”hilariously praised Mr. Borissov on a Facebook live. What better symbol than the return of water to Pernik, for a prime minister who hopes to win a fourth term by praising his policy of building infrastructure, while wanting to make people forget that his country of 7 million inhabitants remains at the the poorest and the most corrupt in the European Union?
“We still cannot drink tap water”
In January 2020, at the heart of the crisis, he had his environment minister arrested, a first in Bulgaria. But a year later, the ex-minister was released and is still awaiting news of his indictment. For their part, the 80,000 inhabitants of Pernik still suffer from regular water cuts, but they have come out of the severe restriction program applied until the summer. “We still cannot drink tap water”, complains, however, Simona Kabadjova, a 25-year-old teacher, who lives with five in two rooms, where she has to accumulate water cans. “I grew up in Sofia and I had never seen something like this”, explains the one who voted for Mr. Borissov in the last polls, but who now wants “That things change”, without really knowing how to do it.
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