A scandal broke out in the parliament because of the referenda.
The authors suggest that the minimum required number of signatures for a proposal to hold referendums should be set in law, not a fixed number, as it is now for a national referendum – 200 thousand or 400 thousand citizens with voting rights, and as a ratio on the same basis, reported novini.bg.
Nadezhda Yordanov from the PP-DB came up with a procedure that the voting on the item on the participation of citizens in the decisions in the state authorities and local self-government was adopted illegally, due to discrepancies in the days and deadlines for the proposal. She asked that the point, announced first on Thursday, be dropped.
Pavela Mitova from ITN, who are the initiators of the proposal, however, quickly took the floor. “The fact that you have decided that citizens do not have a say and do not participate in direct democracy - we are not interested,", Mitova pointed out.
In the end, it came to a vote whether to drop the point and the PP-DB proposal was rejected by a majority.
"This law is important to restore citizens' confidence in the political system. We will propose changes to improve it," commented "Vazrazhdane".
Nadezhda Yordanova appeared on the stand again.
"The question of how to strengthen citizen participation is of utmost importance. I agree that the current law has deficiencies. But is the proposed solution the best? "The drop in the eligibility threshold for referendums will have the opposite effect," she pointed out, citing Brexit as an example.
"Since your coalition exists - you constantly talk about democracy and the rule of law. But you are fighting against the brightest form of democracy. You scare and explain things that are not fact - your party. In direct text, it is explained that the Bulgarian people are illiterate and incompetent. Moldova will have a referendum on the EU - are they smarter than us? But the people will have their say," announced Tsoncho Ganev from "Vazrazhdane".
ITN's Stanislav Balabanov also responded to Yordanova: "When there is a will, there is a way. According to you, you are very right-wing and democratic, and you do everything to postpone direct democracy. This is a battle of the Bulgarian society for 8 years. The parliament crushed these attempts, with different grips.
"The referendum is a powerful weapon, but it must be well calibrated so that it does not turn on the citizen himself," said Yordanova.
"Society wants referendums. Only because of you, PP-DB, who beat your chest that you are democrats, but you are only democrats during a campaign, the electoral turnout is scandalously low. Even if two million Bulgarians sign for a referendum, you will find a way to thwart its holding", Zvezdelina Karavelova from "Vazrazhdane" joined the debate.
The Law on Direct Participation of Citizens in State Power and Local Self-Government was voted on.
Toshko Yordanov from ITN asked all his colleagues to think about it and clarified that he is addressing everyone without PP - DB and the rest of the "shushlyakova paplach".
However, the law was not adopted.
Out of 191 people's representatives who voted "for" were 81 ("Vazrazhdane", ITN, BSP), "against" - 30 (GERB, PP-DB) and 80 abstained from voting (the majority of the group of GERB, PP-DB and DPS).