Bulgarian Election: Fraud and Vote Buying

On 12 May in Bulgaria were held early parliamentary elections. They were reached after unprecedented massive protests in the whole country in February and the resignation of the government of the ruling party GERB.

The elections were accompanied by falsifications, vote buying and pressure to vote for certain parties. The representatives of the smaller parties were not allowed to be present by the counting of the votes in many sections and in many cases they didn’t receive a copy of the protocols of the election stations.
Just four of the more than 40 occurring parties and coalitions will be represented in the new parliament. The most votes received with 30,5 percent the conservative GERB. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which belongs to the right wing of the Party of European Socialists, received 26,6 percent. For the party of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, DPS, voted 11,3 percent. As the fourth-largest force attracts with 7,3 percent, the fascist Ataka back into the parliament. The other forces, including those that had emerged from the protests, received less than 0,5 percent. The Bulgarian Left reached officially 0,17 percent.
This was the first individual participation of the Bulgarian Left in parliamentary elections since its establishment. On one hand, the party doesn’t have any financial resources because it doesn’t receive government funding. On the other hand, every media time in Bulgaria should be paid and it is extremely expensive during the election campaign.
The Bulgarian Left does not accept the election results. The Bulgarian Left called the Central Election Commission to cancel immediately the recent parliamentary elections and insists for scheduling of new parliamentary elections which should be conducted by comprehensive international monitoring in the whole country. The elections in Bulgaria were accompanied by fraud, forgery and buying of votes. The result of the Bulgarian Left is a forget result. In the records of many election sections are missing the votes of the members and sympathizers of the party. Another big part of the vote ballots for the Bulgarian Left have been invalidated. The Bulgarian Left supports the protests of the non-parliamentary opposition. The presented in the parliament four political forces have been elected not with democratic legitimacy but with illusion and deceit. No matter what kind of government will be established, it will not reflect the real political ratios in the country.
It is difficult to say what will happen hereafter. The new parliament will be constituted on the 21 May and the President will mandate GERB for forming a government. It is assumed that they will be not able to form a government as the three other parties – the BSP, the DPS and the Ataka have already announced that they will not support a government of GERB. If this occurs the Bulgarian Socialist party will get the mandate for forming the government. Probably the BSP will establish a coalition government with the ethnical party DPS and the fascist party Ataka, because they have already started preliminary discussions about the composition of the Cabinet. However, the cancellation of elections and the scheduling of new parliamentary elections in the coming months are also not excluded, because GERB have already publicly announced that they will refer this matter to the Constitutional Court. The situation is very dynamic and it is difficult to predict exactly what scenario will be developed. We will keep you in touch.

Report dated 15 May.