Страницата за новини на международната мрежа от организации Association for Progressive Communications (APC) публикува анализ на Павел Антонов за появата на ЗЕЛЕНИТЕ и на унгарската партия Lehet Más a Politika! (Политиката може да бъде различна!) на изборите за Европейски парламент.
APC е основана 1990 г. и осигурява комуникационна инфраструктура на групи и личности работещи за мир, човешки права, опазване на околната среда и устойчивост. Организацията има съвещателен глас към Икономическия и социален съвет (ECOSOC) на Обединените Нации.
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Indeed, members of the For the Nature coalition had been campaigning for months against the non-transparent practice of exchanging cheaper forests for state-owned green areas along the Black Sea coast and in the high mountains, which would immediately be turned into construction development sites. But activists found it hard to believe that their repeated signals to Bulgaria’s law enforcement agencies and parliament and the EU, had actually worked. “The DANS had never budged before,” explained Stefan Avramov of the Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation, who emailed the coalition’s mailing list. But scepticism aside, the greens had to face the fact that they had once again appeared at the right time and place to topple yet another Goliath breaching the public’s environmental interests. And internet communications had been the catapult in their hands.
The public had already faced it, with spontaneous citizen actions against the tourist construction bonanza in the mountains and along the Black Sea coast, sprawling from internet chat rooms and the blogosphere onto the streets of Sofia and other major cities since 2007. Two years later, flying on the wings of their rediscovered ability to set the public agenda, activists were ready to claim a stake in the country’s representative democracy system and run for elections with their own political party called Zelenite (the Greens).
Indeed, members of the For the Nature coalition had been campaigning for months against the non-transparent practice of exchanging cheaper forests for state-owned green areas along the Black Sea coast and in the high mountains, which would immediately be turned into construction development sites. But activists found it hard to believe that their repeated signals to Bulgaria’s law enforcement agencies and parliament and the EU, had actually worked. “The DANS had never budged before,” explained Stefan Avramov of the Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation, who emailed the coalition’s mailing list. But scepticism aside, the greens had to face the fact that they had once again appeared at the right time and place to topple yet another Goliath breaching the public’s environmental interests. And internet communications had been the catapult in their hands.
The public had already faced it, with spontaneous citizen actions against the tourist construction bonanza in the mountains and along the Black Sea coast, sprawling from internet chat rooms and the blogosphere onto the streets of Sofia and other major cities since 2007. Two years later, flying on the wings of their rediscovered ability to set the public agenda, activists were ready to claim a stake in the country’s representative democracy system and run for elections with their own political party called Zelenite (the Greens).
Zelenite campagin: Let’s reclaim the state for the citizens
If common roots in the green movement is the first striking similarity between Zelenite in Sofia and LMP in Budapest, their reliance on the internet and online networking is certainly the second, beginning with the large-scale internet presence, through which both parties imposed to meet their respective countries’ formal requirements for participation in the elections. With the help of online signatures and money donations, Zelenite’s last minute happy-ending registration for the EU ballot was not less exciting. And while the two parties’ results (2.6 per cent of the vote for LMP and only 0.72 for Zelenite) were certainly no match for the great expectations and enthusiasm of their supporters, they were read as a distinguishable claim for future presence in both countries by political analysts.
e-networking in action
Both Zelenite and LMP campaigned aggressively online, aiming to raise their profile and consolidate support among young voters withinternet access, said representatives from Political Capital – a think tank that operates in both countries. Not surprisingly, internet and communication rights have found a prominent space in the Zelenite’s programme . The party’s campaign and election ballot featured Bogo Shopov, one of the faces of the online communication rights struggle in Bulgaria. This aspect of Zelenite’s campaign reflected a powerful public reaction against the infringement of freedom of both online and traditional forms of expression by state bodies and new policies aimed at the establishment of data retention.
But similarities do not stop here. Both parties had their electoral lists populated by young faces, well familiar to the public with their activist past: people like András Schiffer, a Védegylet activist since Sólyom’s presidential crusade, and Andrey Kovachev, the chair of Balkani – Sofia and a veteran from the media battles against the construction lobbyists. E-networking activists linked to APC’s members in Hungary and Bulgaria, were actively involved as well. BlueLink had at some point two of its Board members in Zelenite’s leadership, and its chairwoman Natalia Dimitrova ran for election in the European Parliament on Zelenite’s ticket. In Hungary Green Spider members were involved with ELP since its very start.