Bulgaria Court Will Rule on Disputed Turkey Votes

Bulgaria's Constitutional Court is amassing polling data in order to rule on the legitimacy of parliamentary election votes cast by Bulgarian citizens in Turkey. Photo by BGNES

The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) has assigned to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) the task of making a hypothetical recount of votes cast in Turkey in the last Bulgarian parliamentary elections.

The study is to be made, so that the SCC may decide whether there were any violations of the voting procedure in Turkey.

The calculation is to be based on the findings of experts who had made an assessment of the case presented by the conservative "Order, Law and Justice" party (RZS) concerning votes in Turkey. Their expert conclusions have not yet been revealed.

It is also not clear why the SCC wants to examine the practical effects of a possible reversal of the mandates, before it rules whether the elections were legitimately run.

There is no relevant information published on the SCC web site, contrary to the normal practise with all acts of institution.

The Central Electoral Commission has been on Monday, as directed by the SCC. The committee has said that it will answer the specific issues raised by the SCC; whether votes from all polling stations should be counted, and how many thousands of votes are questionable.

The committee sated that it was possible they would be able to issue a statement by the end of the day. CEC has already sent a request for information from "Information Services" - the body responsible for counting the election votes - in order to support its eventual decision.

During the Bulgarian parliamentary elections on July 5, 2009, a total of 252 voting stations were opened in 62 countries around the world, with 123 located in Turkey.

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