The anti-government protests in the summer of 2013 were the largest since the fall of the Zhan Videnov government in the end of 1996. Photo: Novinite.com

Bulgarians had only four occasions for optimism since the darkest moments of the transition, shows a survey of the Gallup International agency, presented on the occasion of the 25-th anniversary of the fall of Todor Zhivkov from power.

Those occasions were the first days of the governments of Ivan Kostov, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Boyko Borisov and the country's accession to the EU in 2007.

“Those four events in our contemporary history affected the positive outlook and the hopes of the Bulgarians after the fall of the Zhan Videnov government in the end of 1996,” Parvan Simeonov, head of Gallup International said.

According to him, this was indicative of people's political naivete, but also of optimism, especially around Bulgaria's EU accession in 2007.

“Formally Bulgaria's transition ended in 2007, but in practice it ended now – at the 25-th anniversary, when a new generation is arriving and the old – the one that overthrew the communist regime and lay the foundations of democracy is withdrawing,” said Petar Nikolov of the Institute For Rightist Policies.

According to Nikolov, the problems of the transition were two: that the revolution was made by people who grew up in communism and raised in and with lies and that instead of coming up with its own model for reforms, Bulgaria borrowed from other former communist states.

Nikolov said he was expecting a new kind of transition, driven by the young generation, which would impose its values and models of work and governance. This, however, was not necessarily a good thing, according to Nikolov, who pointed out that the new generation lacks the will and capacity to carry out a true reform of democracy.