Political Scientists, Sociologists Predict Dictatorship Due to New Election Rules

Citizens’ Coalition for Free and Democratic Election is to provoke a mass attendance of European observers for Bulgaria’s forthcoming elections, sociologist and chair of the coalition’s Management Board Ognian Minchev announced Wednesday. Representatives of the formation will meet ambassadors of the EU member countries in Bulgaria and contact the European Commission and the European Parliament next week. Such a precedent with European observers presence at elections in a EU member state has occurred at the latest presidential election in Poland.

The Coalition predicts vitiation of the election process.
A danger exists of a boom of non-democratic practices, such as votes purchasing, pressure on voters, and controlling their voting.

“Bulgaria’s society finds itself into an entirely new political and civic situation”, Minchev said. According to him, the latest local election showed that parties not purchasing votes remained off the ranking. The sociologist commented that the amendments to the election laws, adopted in the last minute after being hidden and delayed for six months, have suffocated all debates on them.
 
The election of 31 majority MPs to the next 41st National Assembly directly violates the Constitution
due to the different weights of votes in the different regions of the country. These legislative amendments were called “instrumental” and described as “cynic arithmetic”, as they were devised to benefit certain parties.

The introduction of the 8% barrier for coalitions through a marionette (the Order, Law, Justice party) was aimed at disqualifying certain runners and bring service victory to the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the ethnically Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). The same purpose is attributed to the ruling of the Sofia City Court (SCC) to reject registering the leadership of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), sociologists think.

“A serious challenge at the forthcoming elections will be not only votes purchasing and voting control, but also massive pre-election manipulations and false final results in case they are not in favour of BSP and MRF”, Ognian Minchev said.

The Coalition for Free and Democratic Election
wants an agreement signed between civic organization and the media for securing the most transparent and honest environment possible for the forthcoming election.

The public contract the coalition has already signed with nine of Bulgaria’s leading political forces turned out to be but a sheet of paper, experts said. In their words, BSP and MRF have used the agreement only to make a buzz PR action around it. So far only three of the nine clauses in the document are fulfilled. The first regards pre-election ad materials which should contain warnings versus votes purchasing; the second addresses sanctions to be imposed for vote trade; and the third is connected to the right of the National Audit Office to check up on incomes and expenses done during the election campaigns.

The proposal of the coalition to have representatives on the Central Election Committee and the Regional Election Committees sent to President Georgy Parvanov and the parliamentary parties was not answered to.

The sociologists voiced
disappointment with the rejection of the idea for setting up regional polling centers
proposed for debate in the parliament by Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), and later on by the National Movement for Stability and Prosperity (NMSP). Yet each third Bulgarian backs the establishment of such centers, according to a national research of the Open Society Institute, presented by its head Georgi Stoychev. He added that 64% of the respondents consider vote purchasing a crime, and only 5% assume it a normal European practice. The most inclined to be paid for voting, according to the research, are the followers of the MRF, and the least – these of the nationalist Attack party and of Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB).

Executive director of the European Institute Yuliana Nikolova emphasized the adopted amendments to the election laws are set to enter the next negative report of the Council of Europe against Bulgaria over non-adherence to the commonwealth’s values.

Sociologist Mira Radeva also outlined some anxious trends. According to recent sociology data
people do not understand the legislation amendments and only approve of the 8% barrier for coalition because they do not want a fragmented parliament.

“We are humiliated as voters” Radeva said, adding that the democratic order and consensus that have been built for 20 years are now in fact ruined.

Writer and former MP, ambassador, and one of the enigmatic names of UDF’s early infancy Edvin Sougarev determined what’s happening now as a “symptom of a future dictatorship”.

The deposit of BGN 50,000 for running at the elections was described by expert Dimitar Kyumyurdzhiev as “unilaterally introduced property qualification and a third hit on voting rights” after the majority voting element and the 8% barrier for coalitions. Even Luxemburg and Ireland, which are among the richest European countries, do not require deposit for general elections run.

Sociologists’ final conclusion is that the now ruling are cementing their position in power. Political Scientist Antony Galabov voiced a hope that the President will deliver on his promise and veto the amendments to the election laws.