Bulgarian Socialists Threaten Elections Recall after Runoff

The leader of the Socialists, Sergey Stanishev, says the elections runoff results will decide if Bulgaria will have a totalitarian regime or democracy. Photo by BGNES

The opposition, left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) reiterated threats they will ask for annulment of the results of the October 23 presidential and local elections, but only after the conclusion of the runoff this Sunday.

The Socialists already declared they will demand such annulment of local elections results in the cities of Sofia, Kyustendil, and Silistra and the towns of Nova Zagora, Zemen and Elhovo.

The BSP leader and former Prime Minister in the previous cabinet of the Three-Way Coalition, Sergey Stanishev, labeled the first round of the elections "a bordello" and blamed the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party (GERB) for the lack of organization, violations and manipulations of the election process.

Stanishev further informed that the Socialists have sent a letter to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) to swiftly undertake measures to prevent chaos at the runoff, violations of voting rights by having people wrongly entered in the so-called "banned from voting lists," the large number of invalid ballots, and improper handling of the latter, otherwise the runoff will end up being a flop as well.

The Socialists' leader gave his own estimate for the difference between the top runner, Rosen Plevneliev, nominated by GERB and the BSP candidate, Ivaylo Kalfin, saying it stood at 5%, not at 11% as officially announced and reiterated appeals to everyone to go to the polls Sunday.

"The results of this runoff will decide if we will have a totalitarian regime or democracy in Bulgaria," Stanishev stated once again.

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