Alpha Research poll: 70% of Bulgarians want public parks open to all
Seventy per cent of Bulgarians polled in an Alpha Research poll want public parks and gardens open for visits by everyone, while 61 per cent favour an end to intercity travel restrictions.
The results of the poll, done for Bulgarian National Television’s Referendum talk show, were announced in the April 28 evening broadcast.
Forty-eight per cent of those polled saw the opening of kindergartens and primary schools as a priority.
Overall, 54.1 per cent wanted fewer measures against the spread of Covid-19, but over a longer period of time. In contrast, 43.8 per cent favoured more measures, but over a shorter period of time. About 2.1 per cent were undecided, the Alpha Research poll found.
Separately, in an interview with Bulgarian National Radio, Alpha Research’s Boryana Dimitrova, referring to the results of a poll to be announced in coming days, said that there was a high degree of public confidence in the national operational headquarters against Covid-19.
“Bulgaria is an interesting case, where on the one hand we have the national operational headquarters, which is an advisory body. In purely managerial terms, this has proved to a useful move, Bulgaria has confidence in the operational HQ and its firm positions, while the approach of clear principles, valid for all, works well.
“At the same time, the political power, the government, retains the possibility to agree or not agree with some of the measures proposed by the operational HQ. That is a wonderful opportunity, in which the operational HQ bears the main burden of the ban, while the government retains the opportunity of adaptation in this situation,” Dimitrova said.
The desire to loosen the measures did not translate into a decline in confidence in the government, she said.
“To be annoyed by some decisions – how a walk in the park is organised, how to get in and out of big cities – does not call into question the big principles of behaviour.”
Dimitrova said that at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis in Bulgaria, there was a clear cohesion and mobilisation of people, with a high degree of self-discipline, to follow the measures because of the fear of infection.
She said that it was normal, given the lack of an increase in the incidence rate in Bulgaria, that this desire for adherence to the measures would gradually weaken.
During the State of Emergency and after the hearing of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov in Parliament, the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party had failed to make any gains, Dimitrova said.
(Photo, of tape sealing off access to a side entrance to Zaimov Park in Sofia: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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