The Path to Mediterranean Supremacy/Bulgarian Empire

"Yes, God is blessing me! By the way, have you heard? The situation abroad is not very good now. A friend of mine who is engaged in international trade has become bankrupt this time!" said Lora.

"Yes! You know, I don't care much about foreign countries. Yesterday's paper even said that they again put out the rebellions in Serbia. They were too useless. They were finished so quickly. The situation should be starting to improve now. I haven't heard of any country in chaos again!" Bosco said, smiling.

"Oh, my friend, is war the only thing in your eyes anymore? Is something as big as an economic crisis not even a problem?" Lora said with slight concern.

"Isn't the economic crisis over? Did their government not take measures? Didn't they pull through, like we did, as the government intervened, even though everyone suffered some losses?" Bosco said sadly.

Lora slapped her forehead with her hand and said in a dull voice, "Oh, God! How do I know you a bad luck!"

"Do you think that every country's government is the same? Or are the capitalists in every country as moral as we Bulgarians are?"

"You know, we have big capitalists in the country. Before the government introduced the bill that prohibits companies from laying off employees in the economic crisis, they have said that they will not lay off employees in the economic crisis and will not raise prices, which helps to stabilize people's hearts. If not, the government's bill would not be so easy to implement!"

Bosco thought about it and said, "Yeah, that's right! Even I was against this bill at that time. There weren't many people making shoes at that time, and it would have cost me a lot! It seems that compared to Mikail, Franz and Viktor, my awareness is not enough."

Lora laughed and said, "Come on! Do not be sentimental, we are still simple people. We are still far from their realm of social values. However, they live like that, is the real life too!"

...

Anyway, the elections for Bulgarian parliamentarians, which kicked off on October 28, 1892, were in full swing in Bulgaria.

Five years have passed. Ferdinand is no longer the king who is new to the country. He has two or three small dogs and cats in his hands.

How could he give someone else a chance to do the graft after preparing for the parliamentary elections for so long? All the factories in Bulgaria are his strongest backing.

Just over 50,000 of those hundreds of thousands of workers have voter status. That number already represents half of all voters in all of Bulgaria.

The new National Assembly, so to speak, is already in Ferdinand's pocket. The political parties that are now busy playing bombs have lost before they have even started.

In a small Bulgaria, there were thirteen political parties of all sizes at that time. If you count the small communities, there were even more.

Thirteen political parties, which may seem impressive, actually have less than 5,000 members in their entire parties combined.

Both the Liberal Party in its prime and the Conservative Party are far more numerous. One can see the attitude of the Bulgarian public towards political parties now.

The Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, once-powerful parties, have long since gone up in smoke. After all, under Ferdinand's covert push, they threaten everyone in Bulgaria.

Those who play politics are smart people. Everyone knows that if they carry the name of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, they are lucky if they don't get beaten up. How can they still want to win the election?

So people are very shameless about changing their masks. But under the group without a leader, that split became obvious. They each pulled up a group of people to set up another group.

However, since Ferdinand's rule, Bulgaria has made huge progress in the country's livelihood. Therefore, there is little interest in political parties.

Without supporters, the future will naturally not be easy. In addition, Ferdinand slaughtered their own brand and restricted the bill, which is not changed.

The political party groups in Bulgaria are struggling right now. Many of them are leaving one after another. Many are ready to make a final push in this election, even those who remain.

One such member was Karl, who was once a rising star in the Conservative Party. He was on a steady rise when he faced the Stambolov dictatorship.

The Conservative Party's big shots have been jailed. When he saw that the situation was not good, the smart Karl ran away from it. After the fall of Stambolov, he came out and found that they had abolished the Conservative Party. Karl had gathered a group of people who wanted to take the chance to rise to power.

However, Karl ran away at the moment of crisis and became his biggest stain. He was unable to convince the crowd. Coupled with the fact that the Conservative Party had become infamous, Karl simply took his fellow supporters and set up his own party, the Bulgarian Progressive Party.

The progress of the Bulgarian Progressive Party was not as smooth as Karl had imagined. One could even say that it was in trouble.

On the one hand, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party have gone too far. Now the Bulgarian public is tired of the endless fights between political parties. On the other hand, there are open and secret fights between political parties which pull each other's legs. The new bill introduced by Ferdinand clearly defines political parties as non-profit groups and prohibits the taking of political cash. It cuts off the main income of political parties.

Karl still held on under this series of blows, but the people under the hands could not hold on.

Most of the people who joined the Progressive Party were opportunists or passionate young people who got fooled into coming in. They were not people who could endure patience.

They joined the Progressive Party to pursue a career in politics or influence government policy through the Progressive Party. They did not come to suffer. Only a small portion of them are people who are fighting for their ideals.

Since Ferdinand came to power, Bulgaria has made great progress in all areas. The standard of living of the people has improved clearly. Everything is going well, and the population does not have high hopes for political parties.

The general situation will naturally affect the individual. In addition, Ferdinand has been attached to the campaign work. The concept of "empty talk misleads the country, practical work builds a nation" has been deeply rooted in people's hearts.

In contrast, those with insight felt that political parties could not make things happen, so they left. Speculators saw no return on their long-term investment and were not interested.

There are only two hundred left from the best of more than three thousand party members. Even this last family base may collapse at any time, and Karl's ambition has been almost destroyed. This election has been taken as his last chance.

It is estimated that no party in Bulgaria has this ambition anymore to win the general election and become the ruling party. Karl's goal is simple, as long as he gets a few parliament seats in this election, it is enough to be able to maintain some influence on the government.

"Ding Dong, Ding Dong!"

"Come in!" Karl said.

A young man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old walked in and spoke, "Mr. Karl, what do you want from me?"

"Edvin, how are the preparations for the election coming along?" said Karl, looking at his right-hand man.

"I regret, Mr. Karl I'm afraid to let you down. We lack enough gold fees in our hands. It is difficult to carry out a large-scale campaign, and the prospects are not good!" Edvin said with difficulty.

"I know all this, and we're not the only ones, right? Our opponents are probably not much better!" Karl said with a bitter smile.

"Yes, under the current Bulgarian law, even campaign slogans have to be authentic. The public is not interested in the big pictures we create. On the contrary, many people who are running for office independently have good support. Most of them have a great track record and prove that they have already contributed to Bulgaria, which is in line with the mentality of the voters now!" Edvin said glumly.

"Oh, God! This is really bad news from heaven. Now we can only hope for God's blessing! If not, Bulgaria will soon be a global phenomenon again. We will also become the laughing stock of the world, with the total number of votes for political parties being lower than for individual voters!" Karl said with a bitter smile.