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| This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Bulgaria |
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A referendum on introducing electronic voting was held in Bulgaria on 25 October 2015 alongside local elections. Although the referendum resulted was approved by a wide margin, turnout was far below the required threshold to make its result binding. [1]
Electronic voting is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting votes.
A petition was introduced into the Bulgarian Parliament on 10 March 2013 by an Initiative Committee presided by professor Georgi Bliznashki on proposed changes to the electoral code of Bulgaria. [2] [3] These included: reintroducing first-past-the-post voting alongside proportional representation, making voting compulsory and introducing electronic voting. [2] Under current Bulgarian law a referendum is mandatory if a petition receives at least five hundred thousand signatures. Supporters claimed to have 560,000 signatures on the petition, [4] giving Parliament three months (until early June) to authenticate the signatures. Numerous signatures were nullified, however, and so the requirement of half of million authentic signatures was missed. Still, there were enough signatures to put the content up for debate before parliament. [3] When the debate came in June, however, lawmakers rejected the idea of holding the referendum. [5]
The National Assembly is the unicameral parliament and legislative body of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Georgi Bliznashki is a Bulgarian politician and a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He was a member of the Coalition for Bulgaria, part of the Party of European Socialists, and became and was an MEP from 1 January 2007 to June 2007 with the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union. He was expelled from BSP in March 2014.
A first-past-the-post electoral system is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is sometimes described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates.
One of the elements in the petition, that of introducing mandatory voting, has been put forward by the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Sergei Stanishev, and has been endorsed by the leader of GERB, Boyko Borisov. [6]
The Bulgarian Socialist Party, known as the Centenarian, is a social-democratic political party in Bulgaria and the successor to the Bulgarian Communist Party. It is a member of the Party of European Socialists with a pro-EU stance, although it has taken some euroskeptic positions and called for an end to EU sanctions against Russia. BSP is also a member of the Socialist International. It is Bulgaria's largest political party by membership.
Sergei Dmitrievich Stanishev is a Bulgarian politician who has served as President of the Party of European Socialists since November 2011 and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Bulgaria. He previously served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 2005 to 2009, Leader of the Socialist Party from 2001 to 2014 and Member of the National Assembly from 1997 to 2014.
GERB is a conservative, populist Bulgarian political party established on 13 March 2006. The initials of the party герб/gerb also translate as "coat of arms" in Bulgarian. It is Bulgaria's second-largest party by membership.
| Choice | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| For | 1,883,411 | 72.79 |
| Against | 704,182 | 27.21 |
| Invalid/blank votes | 122,339 | – |
| Total | 2,709,932 | 100 |
| Registered voters/turnout | 6,766,619 | 40.05 |
| Source: CEC | ||
The politics of Bulgaria take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Bulgaria elected its members of the European Parliament in a by-election on 20 May 2007. It was the country's first European election, having joined the Union on 1 January of that year. The country still had 18 MEPs, no change from before the election. Until Bulgaria could hold these elections, the country was represented by MEPs appointed by the National Assembly.
The eighty-six cabinet of Bulgaria also known as the three-party coalition cabinet ruled from August 17, 2005 to July 27, 2009. The cabinet was formed with the coalition of the three leading at that time parties BSP, NDSV and DPS - in order of their parliamentary representation. Their parliamentary representation also determined the number of cabinet appointments.
Tsvetan Genchev Tsvetanov is a Bulgarian politician and former government official. A former security deputy mayor of Sofia, he was, until 2009, the chairman of the GERB party. On 8 July 2009, in the wake of the 2009 parliamentary election won by his party, he was specified by de facto party leader Boyko Borisov as future Minister of the Interior.
A presidential election was held in Bulgaria on 23 October 2011, with a runoff held on 30 October 2011. No candidate won outright in the first round, resulting in a second round runoff between the eventual winner, Rosen Plevneliev of GERB, and Ivaylo Kalfin of the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
A referendum on building a new nuclear power plant was held in Bulgaria on 27 January 2013. Whilst it was not explicitly mentioned in the question, it was widely acknowledged that the referendum was about restarting construction at the Belene Nuclear Power Plant.
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 12 May 2013, two months ahead of schedule. Protests had forced the resignation of the GERB government in February, leading to the election being moved up.
The European Parliament election of 2014 in Bulgaria was held on 25 May 2014 to elect the Members of the European Parliament from Bulgaria to the European Parliament as part of the larger European Parliament election. After a decision by the European Council in 2013, Bulgaria was allocated 17 seats in the European Parliament for the Eighth European Parliament.
Mihail Raykov Mikov is a Bulgarian politician who was Chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) from 2014 to 2016. He is a parliamentarian with six consecutive terms as a deputy in the National Assembly. His career in the legislature culminated in his election as Chairman of the 42nd National Assembly on May 21, 2013. Mikov was Minister of Interior from 24 April 2008 to 29 July 2009 in Sergei Stanishev's government. Currently he is the leader of the Parliamentary Group of BSP Left Bulgaria in the 43rd National Assembly, the coalition led by the socialist party. Mihail Mikov was elected as Chairman of the BSP on 27 July 2014, succeeding Sergei Stanishev. He won a run-off against outgoing Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev with a final tally of 377-333.
The Oresharski Government was the eighty-ninth cabinet of Bulgaria which took office on 29 May 2013. The government, led by Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski, is one of technocrats created following the 2013 election. The cabinet was dissolved on 6 August 2014 to make way for a caretaker government that would lead Bulgaria through early elections in October of the same year.
Boyko Metodiev Borisov is a Bulgarian politician who has been serving as the 50th Prime Minister of Bulgaria since 4 May 2017. He had previously held the post of Prime Minister on two separate occasions, from 2009 until 2013 and from 2014 until January 2017. He was also the Mayor of Sofia from 2005 to 2009.
The Reformist Bloc was a centre-right electoral alliance in Bulgaria.
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 5 October 2014 to elect the 43rd National Assembly. GERB remained the largest party, winning 84 of the 240 seats with around a third of the vote. A total of eight parties won seats, the first time since the beginning of democratic elections in 1990 that more than seven parties entered parliament. Boyko Borisov then became prime minister as head of a coalition with the Reformist Bloc and with outside support from the Patriotic Front and the Alternative for Bulgarian Revival.
Reload Bulgaria is a populist political party in Bulgaria.
The ninety-first Cabinet of Bulgaria took office on November 7, 2014. It is a coalition government chaired by Boyko Borisov. The government was formed after the Borisov's party, GERB, won the 2014 parliamentary election. As GERB won 84 out of the 240 seats in the National Assembly, they were compelled to form a coalition to legally govern.
Presidential elections were held in Bulgaria on 6 November 2016, alongside a referendum on changes to the electoral system and political party funding. The second round was held on 13 November 2016, resulting in the victory of Rumen Radev.
A three-question referendum was held in Bulgaria on 6 November 2016 alongside presidential elections. Voters were asked whether they supported limiting public funding of political parties to one lev per year per valid vote received at the previous elections, the introduction of compulsory voting in elections and referendums, and changing the electoral system for the National Assembly to the two-round system. In order to be binding, the number of voters participating in the referendum must be equal to or higher than the number who voted in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 26 March 2017. They had originally been scheduled for 2018 at the end of the four-year term of the National Assembly. However, following the resignation of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and the failure of Bulgarian parties to form a government, early elections were called. Borisov resigned following the defeat of Tsetska Tsacheva, the candidate of his GERB party, in the November 2016 presidential elections. The official election campaign began on 24 February.
Yes, Bulgaria!, is a Bulgarian political party, founded in January 2017 by former Minister of Justice Hristo Ivanov.
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