Bulgarian Parliament Rejected the Presidential Veto on Changes to the Electoral Code

Bulgarian MPs as expected rejected the veto of President Rumen Radev on the controversial changes in the Electoral Code. The law will be sent to the President for promulgation in the State Gazette within seven days, National Assembly President Tsveta Karayancheva announced.

The debates surrounding the majority vote and the machine vote continued for nearly three hours, despite the lack of opposition in the hall. After all, GERB, DPS, United Patriots and Volya unanimously rejected the veto with 154 votes for and none against.

Although the dramatic increase in the preferential threshold, according to the leader of the Volya party, Veselin Mareshki, was a "murder" of preferences, he said he and his colleagues would vote against the veto.
 
GERB MP and Chief of the Parliamentary Legal Commission Danail Kirilov voiced dissatisfaction with the fact that around the elections everyone commented on the Electoral Code without the necessary capacity.

The word was taken by the head of the GERB PG Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who expressed sympathy to his colleagues from the left, who did not attend the plenary today.
 
Among the most controversial changes in the Electoral Code were the increased threshold for the preferential vote, the postponed introduction of machine vote in all sections, and the possibility for the CEC to adopt decisions by a simple majority. In the end, GERB promised that after the veto would be reversed, the threshold for the preferential vote would be postponed.
 
Radev's veto came after three weeks ago, the parliament "in the dark" and on a proposal by the MRF drastically changed the preferential vote regime and effectively abolished it as an opportunity. There followed a wave of dissatisfaction, after which an order by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov to return to the previous threshold of preferences. Even today, GERB has confirmed its intention to change the law again and restore the old position.

Despite the head of state's call to BSP to participate in the debate, left-wing MPs continued their boycott and stayed outside the plenary for a third week. The reason for leaving was precisely the new electoral rules against which this part of the opposition objected.