Bulgarian Diaspora Alarms about Poll Hurdles in Germany

Turkey leads the list by number of voting polls for Bulgarians abroad – 46, followed by Spain – 23, the US – 14 and Moldova – 7. File photo

The members of the initiative of Bulgarians abroad "We Want to Vote" have sent a letter to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, protesting against the organization of the election process in Germany.

The letter was sent after the Central Electoral Commission, CEK, and the Ministry refused to open election polls on October 23 in the German cities of Hamburg, Darmstadt, and Magdeburg, where Bulgaria has honorary consuls and consulates.

The authors of the letter point out the website of the Bulgarian Embassy in Berlin, had posted for weeks information that 20 applications for voter registration are needed in order to open voting polls in these three cities. There are 63 applications for Hamburg, 34 for Darmstadt and 28 for Magdeburg.

According the Foreign Ministry, there must be 100 such applications.

The expats insist that the Embassy in Berlin had further announced that there will be voting polls in 6 German cities, including the above 3, if 20 applications are received under article 44 of the Election code. They have sent a link to the Embassy's website where this information could be seen. Meanwhile, the website has published new information – a copy and paste of Election Code texts.

"In this case, the Foreign Ministry must assume responsibility about the information circulated by the Embassy in Germany and fulfill the promise made to Bulgarians there to open polls in these three cities," request the expats and the Initiative.

On Tuesday, the spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Vesela Cherneva, voiced surprise from the unusually low number of applications from the Bulgarian diaspora in Germany, but explained that honorary consulates do not have the statute of official diplomatic representations thus the 100 application rule applies to the three cities as it has been for the general elections in 2009.

Bulgarians abroad have the right to vote on October 23 to elect the country's new president.

According to the Election Code, 20 applications are needed in order to open a voting poll in a country where Bulgaria has a Consular Office or diplomatic representation, while where there is no such representation, the number of required applications is 100.

The deadline to submit the above said applications is Tuesday, September 27.

On September 27, the members of the same initiative sent a letter to Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, and to over 100 Bulgarian Ambassadors to alert them about hurdles and refusals to open election polls abroad. According to the letter, there were a number of cases when diplomatic missions have refused the applications or have argued about their validity.

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