POLITICAL REACTIONS TO PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL FOR A REFERENDUM

Vice-President Margarita Popova has expressed reservations about President Plevneliev’s proposal for obligatory voting. In her opinion,  obligatory voting is against the principles of the Constitution and if introduced, it would be a restrictive measure. According to her, more sensible programmes with clear political leadership should be used in order to increase voter turnout and stimulate voters to be more active.

From the parties represented in the Bulgarian Parliament, only the right-wing GERB party supported the President’s proposal for a referendum on election rules in May along with the European Parliament elections.

The ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party and their partners from the ethnic Turkish ‘Movement for Rights and Freedoms’ opposed the proposal, pointing out that two of the three questions posed by the President contradicted the Constitution. They underlined that President Plevneliev remained silent during the 7 months when the draft election law was being discussed, but at the last moment, he intervened for political purposes.

The nationalist party ‘Ataka’ also opposed the President’s proposal.