Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
The demonstrations have been characterized as an authentic expression of the desperation of the less affluent Bulgarians, to a large extent motivated by feelings of absolute and relative deprivation and as being dominated by socially oriented demands, associated with the traditional left. While some analysts have labeled them a "revolt of the poor", others have regarded the people from the middle class social stratum (specifically the now defunct citizen movement "Power" (Bulgarian: гражданско движение СИЛА), members of which had organized demonstrations in Sandanski and Blagoevgrad, as the driving force behind the early unrest. Politician Edvin Sugarev has criticized a number of media sources, especially Bivol, for publishing unproven information about Borisov's alleged links with the Ministry of the Interior's CSBOP (Bulgarian: ЦСБОП), where the Prime Minister is purported to have worked as an informer (his file was supposedly called the "Buda dossier"), which he sees as having played a pivotal role in the radicalization of the protest by turning the anger away from the monopolism of energy companies and against Borisov. He compared the situation to the atmosphere in January 1997 (but this time with BSP reaping dividends from it), an opinion shared by Evgeniy Daynov who also drew parallels with the 1990 protests in terms of the volatility of the situation. According to the French ambassador to Bulgaria, Philippe Autié, the protests stemmed from a lack of sufficient trust in the political class and Bulgarian elites as in general as well as the ability of "private and non-transparent stakeholders" to frequently hijack and negatively affect the post-1989 transition processes. Political scientist Vasil Garnizov similarly regards the protests as reflective of the widespread societal sentiment that there is something wrong when it comes to the political and economic structuring of society (as well as the links between the political and economic spheres) - this attitude is thought to have been pervasive since the early 1990s. The need for increased citizen control over political decision-making has also been identified as a key (but sometimes forgotten) demand of the protest movement. Parvan Simeonov sees the fall-out from the February protests as in indication that the second Bulgarian party system after 1989 (the charismatic one that followed the bipolar model of the 1990s), which began with Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and continued with Borisov, has now come to an end. In the view of political anthropologist and journalist Dostena Lavern, the February demonstrations were an indication that "Bulgaria is fully on track to reach an equalization of its social and political realities with those of the other EU countries", with the protest motivations linked to EU-wide negative trends such as the threat posed by financial neoliberalism to the democratic fundamentals of countries (in both Eastern and Western Europe). Economist Georgi Angelov from the Sofia Open Society Institute, commenting on the situation one day prior to Borisov's resignation, explained that the country's stability on the global financial markets and bankruptcy indicators have not been seriously affected due to the protests.