Referendum on Voting Rules to Be Brought to Successful End - President

Domestic | January 21, 2015, Wednesday // 12:56|  views

Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev has said he is determined to make sure that a referendum on voting rules, which failed to take place last year, will be carried out.

Plevneliev sought in January to trigger a national poll seeking citizens' opinion on the introduction of three elements in the electoral process: a majority system, compulsory voting, and e-voting.

An Initiative Committee, headed by Georgi Bliznashki who later became interim PM in the August-November cabinet, used his proposal to initiate a petition which was tabled in Parliament in March after purportedly collecting half a million signatures, the threshold needed to make it mandatory for Parliament to set a date.

The legislature, however, chose not to take the document into consideration, arguing it contained a lot of invalid signatures. The collection itself had been widely criticized, since many had deemed it impossible to have 500 000 people sign the petition in only a few weeks' time.

Now, in his yearly address marking the end of his third year in office, Plevneliev has vowed to go on with the referendum.

"I wish that the people's voice should be hear, and not bought. I will continue and bring to a [successful] end my initiative for a national referendum," he has announced in a televised press conference.

If Plevneliev launches his initiative again, it will have to be considered by a Parliament different from the one of last year, since the new legislature was set up in November.

The previous elected government had slammed at Plevneliev for siding with the opposition and seeking to use the referendum for "his own political goals."

 

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!


Tags: Rosen Plevneliev, Referendum, Georgi Bliznashki

Back  

» Related Articles:

Search

Search