Bulgaria Vote: Just Answer This Riddle And You Will Know The Outcome

World media rediscovered Bulgaria in the last week, on the eve of the popular vote today for parliament. A parade of pessimistic pieces promoted the perception that no party will win a majority, no compromise coalition will be possible, and hopes for competent government yet again will be frustrated. Pick your poison:

• Bulgarians vote in election unlikely to soothe anger, Reuters, May 12, 2013
• With Many Despairing, Bulgaria Heads to Polls, New York Times, May 11, 2013
• Snap election unlikely to ease growing despair in Bulgaria, Irish Times, May 11, 2013
• Bulgaria election: Resisting the radicals, BBC, May 10, 2013
• Bulgaria set for election turbulence as angry voters stay away, Financial Times, May 10, 2013
• Bulgarians Disillusioned Ahead of Vote, Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2013

It seems that every party has publicly promised that, should it not gain a controlling presence in parliament, it will never, ever cooperate with anybody else.

One event that might undermine the negative outlook of the global press would be the presence of an adult in the room who could cajole a coalition compromise. Lest we forget (as do some "foreign correspondents" who parachute into Sofia), such an adult arbitrator has just saved Italy from more than the usual level of governmental dysfunction. (However, The New Yorker seems more disappointed with Italy with a government, than it was with Italy without a government.)

It was mature leadership by separately elected Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev that calmed the country after the resignation of the rightist GERB party in February. Perhaps he can convince whoever is elected that the country's advancement of human rights depends on a cooperative spirit, not on a lot of little Stalins. Without such progress, a selfish political class invites descent into the post-revolutionary chaos that persists in Egypt and elsewhere. Consider Bulgaria descending into "Arab Spring" style calamity, as suggested in this blog last winter.

Perhaps 70,000 of the country's 7 million people participated in protests. They did not complain solely about the economy and corruption. They complained about the very nature of parliamentary democracy as practiced in Bulgaria since its first "free" election in June 1990. Yet even if the net number of protesters was two or three times greater, only two or three percent of the population were sufficiently motivated to take to the streets.

We cannot know how Bulgarians will vote, or would have voted in a cleaner election. Today's Al Jazeera verdict is perhaps the most foreboding on the question of cleanliness versus corruption. It is titled "Buying an election, Bulgarian style: As Bulgarians head to the polls today, their politicians do not have much to offer other than money for their votes."

If I was writing for United Press International, as I once did, I would add color (and thus prejudice the reader's understanding) by reporting that storm clouds, booming thunder and heavy rain have descended over Bulgaria on election day. Yes, that is truly the weather here today.

But Bulgarians, not the foreign press, will determine their own future, a future that, perhaps, may be known by answering this riddle:

• Do Bulgarians walk with their heads down because the sidewalks are broken, or
• Are the sidewalks broken because Bulgarians walk with their heads down?