Court Confirms Bulgaria's Ruling Party Gets 1 More MP

Bulgaria's ruling party GERB gets one more MP after a recount of the votes cast in Turkey in the last general elections. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court confirmed Tuesday a Parliamentary reshuffle based on a recount of votes cast in 23 polling stations in Turkey in the July 2009 elections.

Thus, the group of Bulgaria’s ruling party GERB swells to 117 MPs (still four short of the 121 needed for an absolute majority), whereas the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) loses one MP.

This is also going to cause a reshuffle of the MPs elected from two other political formations because of the redistribution of seats among the electoral districts in Bulgaria.

On Monday, Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission carried out a recount and a review of the votes cast in 23 polling stations in Turkey during Bulgaria’s Parliamentary Elections in July 2010.

The recount was ordered by the Constitutional Court and it was expected that it would rule further in favor of executing the reshuffle. The Court decision is based on violations discovered during the voting in the 23 polling stations in Turkey.

Thus, MP Rushen Riza from the DPS is going to lose his seat and will be replaced by a GERB MP.

This reshuffle will lead Atanas Semov from the conservative RZS party to lose his seat, and to be replaced by Georgi Terziyski from the same party. Semov was elected from the Sofia-1 (or 23rd) electoral district, whereas Terziyski will be a MP from the Gabrovo electoral district.

Mariyana Darakchieva from the rightist Blue Coalition is going to lose her MP seat as well and will be replaced by Ventsislav Varbanov; however, Varbanov is mostly likely going to be an independent as he got in a row with the Blue Coalition leadership in the fall of 2009.

Ironically, Riza entered Parliament by replacing DPS MP Byurhan Abazov in the fall of 2009 after a recount of votes in the district of Ruse. The same recount led Varbanov to lose his seat.

A total of 18 358 votes cast in the 23 polling stations in Turkey have been declared null and void by the Constitutional Court because of violations in the conducting of the election process.

As a result, these votes are subtracted from the total number of votes that each political party got in the July 2009 elections. Thus, the DPS loses 18 140 votes, GERB loses 58 votes, the Socialist Party – 33 votes, Ataka – 26 votes, the Blue Coalition – 15, the RZS – 12, LIDER – 5.

However, the Constitutional Court has rejected the suit filed by the RZS leader Yane Yanev, which disputed the legality of the election of several more DPS MPs – Hasan Hadzhihasan, Iskra Mihaylova-Koparova, Tyndzhay Naimov, Byurhan Abazov, Elin Andreev, Emil Ivanov, Lyutvi Mestan.

Bulgaria’s former Ambassador to Turkey, Branimiv Mladenov was recalled in the fall of 2009 over violations that he failed to prevent during the voting of Bulgarian citizens in Turkey.