Bulgaria's GERB: Vote Void Will Clean Our Image

The former and most recent Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, from the centrist GERB party, photo by BGNES

In just hours, the formerly-ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, will come up with a plan about how exactly it would ask the Constitutional Court to void the election results.

The statement was made Friday by the former speaker of the Parliament from GERB, Tsetska Tsacheva, in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio.

On Thursday, GERB announced they want the results from the May 12 general elections voided.

Under the Constitution, the decision about the void can be made only by the Constitutional Court.

A political party has the right to ask annulment of election results, but only through the intermediation of five institutions – the President, the Supreme Court of Cassations, VKS, the Supreme Administrative Court, VAS, through their respective judges' plenum, the Chief Prosecutor, and at least one fifth of the sworn-in Members of the Parliament.

The latter is interpreted by the majority of legal experts as needing to have a convened Parliament in order for GERB to be able to ask the Constitutional Court for a void through its MPs.

However, the Ombudsman offered a different interpretation Friday morning, saying GERB MPs could do the move now, as their term starts on election day, not the date of the oath of office.

According to Tsacheva, this interpretation was the right one and will be used by GERB to submit the request.

She said her party saw the saga that developed on the day before the elections (reflection day) with the 350 000 ballots discovered inside a printing house, suspected to be used to manipulate the vote, as a stark breach of the law and the ban on all political propaganda, thus the need to ask for a void of the vote.

According to the former speaker, GERB has sustained the most blows during the election campaign.

"If we don't refer the matter to the Constitutional Court, there would be no way for us to clean our image before out supporters and voters," said she.

 

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