site.btaPresident Discusses Upcoming Early Elections with Central Election Commission Leadership

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev on Tuesday held a working meeting with senior officials of the Central Election Commission (CEC) in connection with the forthcoming early parliamentary elections that he has to schedule now that the third and last cabinet-forming mandate within the life of the incumbent 48th National Assembly has failed, the head of State's Press Secretariat said.

"It is important to listen to the CEC's concerns regarding the risks inherent to the preparation and conduct of the forthcoming elections, so that an exact date for their conduct could be set guaranteeing Bulgarian citizens' rights," the President said during the meeting.

In his words, the democratic nature of the State is unthinkable without free, fair and transparent elections enabling each Bulgarian citizen to exercise their right to vote according to the election law. The President noted that, yet again, the Election Code was amended immediately before the holding of elections and the new elements in the law should reckon with the preparedness of the CEC to apply them within the time needed for this.

CEC Chair Kamelia Neykova said that scheduling the elections for March 26 is a risk because it is uncertain whether the paper needed for the machine-voting ballots can be procured by that date. Another risk, in her opinion, is the switch to daylight saving time on the night of March 25 to 26 because the voting machines' time is not automatically reset and the opening of the polls may have to be postponed by one hour.

The CEC is also concerned about the implementation of the video monitoring in the voting sections, introduced by the latest amendments to the Election Code, which has not been put in place so far.

The President recommended to the CEC to focus, among other things, on the instruction and training of section election commission members, especially with regard to the two types of voting methods, by machine and by paper ballot, which has been introduced by the revised Election Code. He would like to see smooth arrangements for all activities and keeping the public promptly informed of the forthcoming steps.

Radev called on the election administration to try to avoid a repeat of the errors and additions in the tally sheets because this is part of the mistrust in the balloting process.