Bulgarian Socialists to Count Presidential, Local Votes Separately to Hinder Scams

BSP MP Mladen Chervenyakov (left) and BSP leader Sergey Stanishev (right) have both warned about widespread election fraud at the upcoming October 23 presidential and local elections. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) plans to make a full parallel vote counting of the ballots cast for the presidential and local elections, BSP MP Mladen Chervenyakov said Wednesday at a press conference.

The socialist MP told journalists that the party was seriously worried about the legality of the vote.

To illustrate his point, Chervenyakov said that tip-offs had been received that in the Vratsa municipality there were bags full of ballots providing election results suited to the forecasts of polling agencies and the protocols of the sectional electoral commissions were ready.

On Tuesday, BSP leader Sergey Stanishiev also spoke about bags full of ballots as one among a number of election fraud methods.

Cherbenyakov warned that unprecedented pressure was being exerted on members of sectional electoral commissions, financial methods included, to sign protocols which have nothing to do with election results.

He said that the replacement would be carried out after the protocols were prepared during the transportation of the ballots from the sectional to the municipal electoral commissions.

The socialist MP stressed that the impact of the fear factor had never been so deep at previous elections.

He told journalists that a number of election headquarters of BSP had been broken into, including the ones in Gabrovo and Asenovgrad.

Chervenyakov drew attention to the fact that the Supreme Administrative Court (VAS) had already received 142 complaints against decisions of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), the majority of them targeting members of municipal electoral commissions and cases of chairs and secretaries of these units belonging to one political party.

According to statistics cited by the left-wing MP, CEC had already received a total of 250 complaints which he termed as a record-breaking rate.

International Secretary of BSP Denitsa Zlateva pointed out that the interim report of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the forthcoming elections in Bulgaria largely coincided with the conclusions of the socialist party.

She made it clear that the European election observers were primarily concerned with the issue of vote-buying.

The report also mentioned anti-Roma protests, the events in the southern Bulgarian village of Katunitsa and the fact that some of the candidates used intolerant and xenophobic rhetoric towards minorities.

The September 23 death of 19-year old Angel Petrov, who got run over by a van driven by an alleged associate of Roma clan leader Kiril Rashkov, triggered waves of protests across Bulgaria.

The clashes resulted in hundreds of arrests on charges of hate speech and incitement to ethnic hatred.

October 17 saw new protests in the village of Katunitsa against the sluggish pace of investigation of the murder.

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