Bulgarians abroad show a huge interest in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, which raises the questions how to organize elections amidst the coronavirus pandemic and how to guarantee the voting rights of each Bulgarian citizen.

87,216 Bulgarians abroad have submitted applications to vote at the forthcoming Parliamentary elections on April 4. For comparison, nearly 45,000 applications were filed at the previous general elections in 2017. In other words, the number of Bulgarians who applied to vote at the 2021 general elections is twice bigger than the number of people who submitted applications to vote at the 2017 Parliamentary elections. The highest number of applications was submitted in Turkey, Great Britain, Germany, Spain and the USA.

Bulgaria has already obtained the consent of a number of countries to open polling stations on their territory and has come up with scenarios regarding the routes and delivery of the ballot papers, assured this country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva.

“We started the preparations abroad before we even knew the date of this year’s general elections, because the forthcoming elections are unusual and are to be held amidst the coronavirus pandemic- said for BNT Ekaterina Zaharieva. In our view, the decision of this country’s head of state to set the date of the Parliamentary elections on April 4 impedes the high voter turnout, because last year a number of countries adopted restrictions before Easter and Christmas, in order to contain the spread of Covid-19. The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is doing its job and is planning to open a record high number of polling stations abroad.”

However, there will be no electoral district “Abroad” at the forthcoming elections and Bulgarians abroad will not be able to elect their own MPs.

“Moreover, their votes remain incomplete, because they are not able to use a preferential ballot – specified Iva Lazarova from the Institute for Public Environment Development in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio. – Our compatriots abroad cannot send their own MPs to the National Assembly and their votes go to the electoral lists in Bulgaria. For instance, the 118,000 ballots cast abroad at the previous general elections weighed as much as the number of votes in medium-sized electoral districts such as Sofia-region, Veliko Tarnovo, Haskovo and Ruse. Each of these electoral districts sent eight MPs to this country’s Parliament.”

This year’s elections require maximum effort because of the legislative restriction allowing the non-EU countries to open a maximum of 35 polling stations on their territory and the impediments stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have a specific proposal that would help more Bulgarians abroad to cast their ballots and ensure physical distance between people – Iva Lazarova went on to say.- We are calling on the Central Election Commission to appoint bigger sectional election commissions consisting of nine members for instance. As a result, this will make it possible to increase the number of polling booths and distribute the administrative and organizational tasks in the polling station better, which would allow voters to cast their ballots quicker. ”

Bulgaria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs called on Bulgarians to join the sectional election commissions and follow the rules. We have received signals that the Bulgarian communities abroad are urged to boycott the requirement for physical distance in front of the polling stations, which would lead to the closure of polling stations and accusations that Bulgaria failed to organize the elections, said minister Zaharieva.

In Iva Lazarova’s words, however, Bulgarians abroad have proved many times that the elections are held according to the rules.

Written by: Diana Tsankova 

English version: Kostadin Atanasov