Deadline for Bulgarian Parties to Sign Up for Elections Expires

At 6 pm Wednesday, Bulgaria's Central Electoral Commission will stop registering parties willing to join the race in the snap general elections in May. File photo

The deadline for parties willing to join the race in Bulgaria's snap general elections in May by submitting documents for registration with the electoral body expires Wednesday at 6 pm.

Wednesday is also the deadline to appoint the members of the district electoral commissions by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

Over 50 parties so far have declared their desire to run, but only several of the major ones have registered so far.

Following the tradition, the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), whose Cabinet resigned on February 21st, was the first one to bring the documents to be registered.

The newly emerged Movement for Civic Control, founded by the informal leaders of the mass protest rallies in Sofia, which prompted the government of Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, to resign, have been intensively collecting signatures as well.

CEC began accepting documents at 9 am on March 19. Parties have to collect 7 000 signatures and a deposit of BGN 10 000 which they will get back if they overcome a threshold of 0.1% from the entire vote.

The deadline for registering coalitions or changing their membership is 5 pm on April 1. The same deadline is valid for initiative committees nominating independent candidates. These candidates, on their part, must register with the district electoral committees by April 9.

The deadline for changing a coalition by removing a party from it is 5 pm on April 6.

On February 21, Bulgaria's Parliament approved the resignation of Borisov's GERB government amidst unprecedented since 1997 protest rallies against sky-high utility bills, monopolies, stagnation, corruption and wide-spread poverty, which later turned into a civil unrest and political demands.

Snap general election is to be held May 12, just two months ahead of the regular date in July.

President, Rosen Plevneliev, named the caretaker government on March 12.

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