President Rumen Radev vetoed changes to Electoral Code

Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev on September 28 vetoed some provisions in the Electoral Code. In an address to the people, which was broadcast live on BNT 1, the head of state substantiated the arguments for his decision.

The protests in recent months are evidence of a deep crisis in democracy, Radev said.

You know that elections are the foundation of any democracy, and how we move forward depends on their fairness and transparency. In this situation, the cabinet does not govern, but seeks to avoid political and legal responsibility for the numerous scandals over the years.

The latest changes to the Electoral Code allow the simultaneous introduction of both voting with paper ballots and machine voting, as well as manual counting. This makes machine voting meaningless, Radev added.

According to him, the desire of the government is to open enough opportunities for chaos and electoral manipulation.

The transfer to the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the decision and the responsibility to determine whether to rent or purchase the machines, in practice, means that Parliament is running away from responsibility.

The legislator deprives the CEC of the opportunity to appoint a contractor for the processing of voting data, fully imputing these activities to Information Services AD.

All these changes have the clear goal to guarantee the official victory of the ruling party in the upcoming elections, the President was firm.

I cannot ignore the fact that the changes of such important rules without a real debate are, in essence, a signal of unpredictability of the state power and they repel the citizens from the ballot boxes, Radev said at the end of his address.