Thousands of Bulgarian citizens blocking the front of the National Assembly to protest against changes to the country’s electoral legislation, which returns voting with paper ballots, while the deputies continued their session on the changes to the Electoral Code inside.
Earlier in the day, the majority in parliament agreed that voting would be carried out simultaneously by paper ballots and machine voting in the larger election sections, but only by ballots in the smaller ones. These changes will be in effect until the state buys new scanning machines, and there is no guarantee when that might happen.
Over the past two years, machine voting has largely eliminated problems with the electoral process in Bulgaria, and the efforts of the three caretaker governments have reduced vote buying to a minimum. Paper ballot voting has been linked to numerous electoral frauds, vote counting errors and nearly 7% invalid votes, raising huge suspicions of electoral manipulation.
Bulgaria has been in a severe political crisis for the past year and a half, which has weakened its key role as the EU’s eastern border. The return of the paper ballot was supported by the two parties with the strongest positions in the local government – GERB of former long-serving Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (EPP) and the Turkish minority party the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (ALDE). They were joined by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (S&D), which believes that machine voting alienates its ageing pro-Russian electorate.
The changes in the law were voted on without any public discussion and any attempt to reach any rational solution. On Thursday, the entire square around the National Assembly in Sofia was filled with people chanting against paper ballots. “Machines don’t lie, unlike people. Manipulations are impossible,” the protesters commented. The protest against the paper ballot was organised by the pro-European parties “We Continue the Change” and “Democratic Bulgaria,” which accused their opponents of trying to steal the next election.
GERB and MRF expressed doubts about the machine vote, but without providing any evidence.
“Today is the day when the democratic vote of every Bulgarian citizen will be replaced, the day when we open the door to invalid ballots when the distortion of the vote makes the whole system work for corruption. Continue to defend your rights, we hope you will support us”, the co-chairman of “We continue the change” Kiril Petkov, who is a former prime minister, called on the Bulgarian citizens to come to the square.
“The masks have fallen. Those who claim to bring the change from bad to worse and those who supposedly bring democracy, they are deliberately not in the hall so that the (scanning) machines are not accepted,” said DPS leader Mustafa Karadayi.
At the same time, MPs from the opposition against the return of paper ballots were in the square in front of the parliament to protest.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
Source: euractiv.com
