Bulgaria LIDER Party also Demands 2nd Vote Count

The founder and informal Chair of the LIDER party, Bulgaria's energy tycoon, Hristo Kovachki. Photo by BGNES

The Chair of Bulgaria's LIDER Coalition, Kancho Filipov, submitted Tuesday an official request demanding a second count of the EP election ballots.

The request was filed with the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) with the motive that the Coalition's results were very close to the threshold for securing a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) seat.

According to LIDER, a newly founded party, having Bulgaria's energy tycoon, Hristo Kovachki, as informal Chair, there was a high probability of mistakes during the count as well as of erroneous discarding of valid ballots.

Preliminary EP election results, announced by CEC Monday, revealed LIDER won 5,73% of the vote, narrowly missing the 5,88% threshold and thus eliminating the possibility for Emil Koshlukov, the LIDER ticket front runner, to become a MEP.

The opposition Blue Coalition and the "Order, Law and Justice" (RZS) party declared Monday they would also demand a second vote count. On Tuesday the Blue Coalition submitted an official request with CEC.