Svetoslav TodorovSofiaBIRNDecember 2, 202218:03President Radev will hand the mandate to ex-PM Boyko Borissov’s party on Monday, as winners of the most recent elections – as protests over controversial changes to the electoral code grip Sofia.
Boyko Borissov holds press conference following parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. Photo: EPA-EFE/VASSIL DONEV
Bulgaria’s President, Rumen Radev, will hand the government mandate on Monday to the last election’s winners, the centre-right GERB party.
“We will use the remaining days of the week in an attempt to secure a political future for a first-term cabinet, which does not exclude a minority cabinet,” GERB member Tomislav Donchev said on Friday.
The announcement comes two months after the latest general election which saw a comeback for ex-PM Boyko Borissov and GERB, despite the party’s involverment in various controversies and allegations of corruption, shrinking media freedom and misuse of EU funds.
But the prospects for a government led by GERB remain poor: apart from the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a party also tied to corruption allegations, Borissov lacks allies to obtain a majority in the 240-member parliament.
It’s unknown whether GERB will designate a projected Prime Minister. In early November, Borissov said he wouldn’t chase the PM’s post himself, in a move to appease “We Continue the Change” – but which ended without warming up relations between the two parties.
GERB came first in the snap elections on October 2 with 25.33 per cent of the vote, under a record low voter turnouit.
It was the latest inconclusive election in a spiral which started in April 2021, when GERB won thr election but could not secure a majority in the chamber.
It was followed by “There’s Such a People” winning the popular vote in July 2021 and finally by the reformists of “We Continue the Change”, led by Kiril Petkov, topping the vote in November 2021.
After only seven months in power, Petkov was ousted when one of the coalition parties, “There’s Such a People”, moved to the opposition in the latest in a long line of erratic moves.
The political deadlock means that if new elections take place in early 2023, President Radev may well continue increasing his profile with yet another interim cabinet; a BIRN analysis looked into how the situation benefits the President.
Parties clash over changes in voting system, new protests emerge
The mandate will be given at a time of high tension in parliament.
After a session which started on Thursday morning and ended early on Friday, the parliament decided, through votes from GERB, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, to restore paper ballots for voting along with the electronic voting machines used in the last several elections.
Since July 2021, Bulgaria has been voting predominantly with electronic machines in which the voter clicks on the name of the chosen candidate.
According to “We Continue the Change” and Democratic Bulgaria, the return of paper ballots only benefits election fraud and there is a lack of transparency in collecting the data. Some of these issues peaked in 2019, when, during the mayoral elections, over 600,000 ballots were deemed invalid.
Since the introduction of machine voting, GERB, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the Socialist Party had a lower turnout in some areas.
But the three parties insist that their main concern is for elderly voters afraid to participate in the election because of the technology involved, and they also suspect the machines may have been programmed to benefit “We Continue the Change”.
According to the 2022 Freedom Index report GERB and Movement for Rights and Freedoms are in fact the parties most likely to engage in fraudulent voting by corrupting vulnerable communities.
Petkov and “We Continue the Change” will receive the mandate next, if GERB returns it unfulfilled next week. However, Petkov also has the problem of having only one clear ally, Democratic Bulgaria.
Several protests in Sofia against the amendments were initiated in the last two weeks and another one was organised last night. The amendments are yet to be fully approved.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
