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Petar Petrov from "Vazrazhdane": Bulgarians can't wait any longer

The deputy reported that he himself submitted lists of suspected vote traders to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office, but did not receive any cooperation

Nov 16, 2024 21:00 109

Petar Petrov from "Vazrazhdane": Bulgarians can't wait any longer  - 1

Bulgarian citizens they cannot wait any longer for inaction and patronage of the electoral trade. This is what he said in "Speak Now" on BNT the MP and lawyer Petar Petrov, nominated for the Speaker of the Parliament by "Vazrazhdane".

Yesterday "Vazrazhdane", ITN and "BSP - United shelf" submitted to the Constitutional Court two appeals, with identical content, with a request to return the powers of President Radev to appoint official offices.

"On Friday, we submitted two requests to the Constitutional Court, because the Bulgarian society must understand that these crimes only and immediately occur on election day. They were prepared for a long time - trading and buying votes - and when we have an obedient caretaker government after the parliamentary elections, the Minister of the Interior, when he became the leader of the DPS list, for example, then we understand that this caretaker government is actually dependent. That is why we submitted these requests to return the previous regime, in which the president has the freedom, and not a home book of dependents to GERB, DPS and PP-DB."

Asked if he thinks that in a new examination there will be a different result in the vote on the changes to the Basic Law in the Constitutional Court, Petar Petrov answered:

"Even if there is no parliament, the Constitutional Court is working and it should be working at full speed. And we are happy that the law and the Constitution are on our side, which we have signed together with BSP in one case, and in the other with ITN, these two constitutional demands. Let us recall first that the votes were 6 to 6, but they had collected all the legal opinions precisely on Article 65 on the dual citizenship of the deputies, which we want to drop, and Article 99 on the home book of the service cabinet. So after reading the decision of the Constitutional Court, we are sure that justice is on our side and that is why we are hoping for a faster decision of the Constitutional Court, let me put it this way. I hope that after the three new constitutional judges are sworn in, the decision will go in a different direction."

The deputy reported that he himself submitted lists of suspected vote traders to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office, but he did not receive any cooperation.

"Understand, I myself have submitted two lists of people who I suspect are vote traders. I did not receive any assistance from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, unfortunately, and neither did the prosecutor's office. No assistance whatsoever. I received a refusal to initiate pre-trial proceedings, which I will appeal."

According to his words, the biggest vote manipulations are done with the paper ballots.

"What our expert team found after analyzing electoral irregularities and fraud, which we gave a press conference on Wednesday in Parliament, is that there is indeed an enormous amount of fraud with the paper ballot. This is a major defect at the moment, combined with the lack of video surveillance, if my memory serves me correctly - there was no video surveillance in 570 polling stations. All of them have 100% voter turnout. Which is also a major problem. Thus, we can point out several possibilities for manipulation of the election results, which is why changes in the Electoral Code are necessary, however, we from "Vazrazhdane" we want to hold at least one broad round table with the participation of civil associations and public organizations, to invite election experts and, most importantly, participants from the election administration, because they are the people on the front line and can say where the problems are, where the flaws, how to make the electoral process fairer. But along with that, let's say that not only changes to the Electoral Code are needed, but also changes to the criminal law. Because if we look at the Penal Code, this is section three of chapter three, there the last changes in sanctions were 10 years ago, even for the leaders of the organized crime group, one article 169 D, was last changed 15 years ago.

BNT: Do you want to vote only with machines?

- At this point, I believe that machine voting gives more objective results, but let's open a bracket that there are problems even there. And they too must be cleared."