Bulgaria Shortens Residency Requirement for Voters

The permanent residency requirement caused tensions in Parliament. Photo by BGNES.

The Bulgarian Parliament accepted amendments in the country's Election Code, which were revoked last week by the Constitutional Court.

The permanent residency requirement, which provided that only Bulgarian citizens, who had lived in the respective city or town for the last 12 months, can vote for mayors and members of municipal councils, will be shortened to 6 months.

The Constitutional Court revoked the text on the grounds that international practice provides for 6 months of residency, not 12.

However, for the upcoming local elections in the fall of 2011, the permanent residency requirement will be 10 months and not 6, as the oppositional leftist Bulgarian Socialist Party and ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms demanded.

The two oppositional parties will submit another claim against the text, Maya Manolova, a key BSP MP declared Friday.

The 12-month residency requirement was introduced by the ruling centrist-right GERB in an attempt to counter tampering with election results by transporting voters from one location to another – the so-called "election tourism."

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