What questions does the decision of the Constitutional Court raise after there was a new counting of ballots in 2204 sections, and this was changed by the composition of the parliament. Lawyer Guncho Gunchev spoke to FACTI.
- Lawyer Gunchev, have you ever seen so many constitutional judges give interviews and comment on a decision they have made?
- The Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria is the fundamental law of the state, which establishes the principles of governance - the form, structure and procedures of state and local authorities, the economy and society and the relations between the state and citizens. The Constitutional Court itself is an independent body that exists to defend the rights and freedoms of the citizens of the Republic of Bulgaria, granted to them by the Constitution of the country. Recent events show that someone has tried to put a spoke in the wheels of the Constitutional Court.
According to the proportional electoral system in force in our country, when verifying the election results, when establishing violations of the law that have led to a change in the composition of the elected National Assembly, the Constitutional Court can itself determine with respect to which members of parliament these violations lead to the illegality of their election. The Constitutional Court can only do this after the calculations made by the Central Election Commission.
In this regard, the Constitutional Court assigned the Central Election Commission to carry out the necessary recalculations, and through the results of the same Constitutional Court it was within its right to issue a decision in this direction.
From the statement made on March 10 by the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, it is evident that the Central Election Commission has not fulfilled its assigned tasks, because “Information Service“ has handed over to the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office the materials provided in the constitutional case, along with the technical media and devices without the permission of the Constitutional Court.
In this way, an attempt was made to clearly obstruct the activities of the Constitutional Court in concluding the case challenging the legality of the elections.
Both the CEC and “Information Service“ tried to practically harass the work of the Constitutional Court.
According to the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, the Constitutional Court is the body that can assess the legality of the elections for national representatives and all state bodies are obliged to provide it with full cooperation, not to hinder its work.
In the present case, the activity of the Constitutional Court was made dependent on the actions or inactions of other state bodies. The Constitutional Court itself felt threatened, no matter how absurd this may be, and once again sought support in public opinion and the energy of the people.
A last cry for help before the total control of the “deep state“ extinguishes the last ray of light.
And here, in the end, the long arm of the Prosecutor General and the custom-made events are once again visible. The Who model continues to control one of the most powerful bludgeons in the state - the prosecutor's office. The regulators are in line.
In this regard, do you remember in July 2020 the unprecedented action of prosecutors who entered the presidential building and searched two offices - according to the prosecutor's office, the actions were carried out under two investigations - one is being conducted by the Military District Prosecutor's Office - Sofia, and the other by the Special Prosecutor's Office and was for influence peddling.
Five years later, nothing has changed.
The centers of independent power are increasingly losing their freedom. The separation of powers is of a wishful nature. As a summary, during the inspection of 2204 sections and 16 illegally elected members of parliament and one political party expelled from the National Assembly. What would have happened if all 12,000 sections had been inspected? In practice, with this ratio of the established violations in the electoral process, it would turn out that 1/3 of the people's representatives are illegal. In my opinion, the Constitutional Court lacks the courage to completely annul the elections.
The violations are so scandalous that the findings of the constitutional judges, I am referring to Prof. Yanaki Stoilov, who shared that this issue was raised, but according to him, this is a last resort, grounds for which are lacking. According to him, the will of a large part of society should have been affected and the violations should have changed their vote. According to him, the numerous violations are not grounds for annulling the elections. What do you think? According to constitutional judge Belazelkov, there was no ground for a complete annulment, because the violations were not sufficient. According to him, the elections were “predominantly fair”. Whatever that means.
- What decision did the Constitutional Court make – legal or political…
- In continuation of the previous question. The Constitutional Court's decision comes after four years of political instability and an almost constant decline in voter turnout. Political parties got themselves into this trap, their desire for complete control over the political and economic processes in the country scattered the vote. As we can see, nine parties are still in parliament today.
Assemblies and political balancing require a lot of effort and unprincipled decisions.
Is the Constitutional Court's decision legal or political? I believe that the Constitutional Court's decision is more of a historical one. It answered a fundamental question - whether the elections in Bulgaria are fair and whether the people's vote matters. Rather, the Constitutional Court's decision reinforced an opinion that has become the norm: "It is not important how voters vote, but who counts the votes!"
It is regrettable to admit the obvious truth that the choice of Bulgarian citizens is being stolen, their future is being changed, and not starting today.
In 36 years of democracy, local sectional commissions have turned into organized criminal groups with one main goal - to preserve criminal administrations at both the local and national levels. Whether the "democratic" The society we live in will push itself out of the bottom or continue to roll into the pit, is entirely our choice.
So those who refused to vote in elections turned out to be the first to see through this filth and the first to refuse to legitimize with their vote a political power that had lost its legitimacy, corrupt from top to bottom and corrupt from bottom to top.
- The recount of ballots in 2204 sections turned the parliamentary agenda upside down, because the "Majesty" party entered the National Assembly. What will the new configuration lead to?
- Yes, the government now has the support of only a minimum number of deputies necessary for its existence, but only in front of the voters. As I have said more than once - money, power and dependencies are a strong catalyst for making unpopular decisions and the participation of political entities in illogical and completely unacceptable combinations, disguised behind good intentions to save the nation.
The “Pro-Western” forces in the parliament and the “pro-Russian” forces are a projection of the same caste. As we have all seen, the repainting, the change of paradigms and the narrative are happening faster than we can imagine.
Whether in the West or the East they care that Bulgaria, which is in the EU and is recognized by the world as a “democratic” country, is not actually holding fair elections. Elections are for the people, not for politicians.
Who cares about rights, freedom, transparency when we are talking about power and money?
Let's leave it to each other, if we hope from the outside to bring order to the political system that has lost its legitimacy. The corrupt political class has no need to choose between political values and civil policies. It only wants to manage a public resource in private interest.
It wants to be accepted by the “new king of the world“ and to bow down. I mean the Trump administration! The coalition of those who want to has defined itself as the Bulgarian political “elite” has learned over the years to monitor the global conjuncture, determining the direction and extent of its change and predicting what its impact will be on a global scale, abruptly changing direction in order to survive.
Since the question was about the counting of votes in the Constitutional Court case, a digression, if you will allow. “Information Service“ AD is a commercial company. This same company is charged with the responsible task of counting the ballots.
Where exactly, in which part of the world does a commercial company carry out such an activity?
Last but not least, the company itself is not 100% state-owned. The company itself is not a sole proprietorship, and an individual also appears in it.
- Does the truth prevail in case No. 33 of the Constitutional Court, or according to the words of the ruling party, is President Radev the basis for the entry of "Majesty" into parliament in order to shake up the government?
- President Radev has always been the convenient "punching pear" for our political elite. It itself, with insulting appointments to our society of individuals who were selected entirely on political, not professional, criteria, turned the Constitutional Court into yet another structure taken over by the "deep state."
The truth is that there are no fair elections in Bulgaria. But this truth was partially confirmed, the lack of verification of the entire electoral process and the partial cassation of the elections is a small slap in the face compared to the one that our political class deserved. This is, unfortunately, a Pyrrhic victory.
The truth is that fairness has been swept away again.
Will “Majesty” shake the government? Rather - no. This government will fall when the puppeteers decide to let down the curtains. Those who want to sit at the table of the rulers are quite enough to turn the assembly several times, like a construction, replacing one political entity with another and it still remains stable.
- We see that again there is only talk about machine voting. And President Radev mentioned this. Are we talking about paper versus machines again?
- The head of state said back in 2020, after the prosecutor's office's action in the presidency, that we need fair elections and machine voting. But it is worth noting here that what we need are not printers, but real counting machines. Machine voting has practically put an end to "invalid" ballots. And there are hundreds of thousands of them! Do you remember what the offensive of the then ruling “assembly“ was and how it ruined what was achieved, so that we could return to the starting point? Unfortunately, we stumble over the same stone again, and then we complain.
What started with the civil protests of 2020, which had 75% approval in our society and were participated in by Bulgarians all over the world, united the entire nation for a change in the political system. All of this was wasted by random politicians who lied to the people's expectations for change. We only achieved a replacement. The shake-up never took place.
Do you know, even the best intentions, even the most perfect Electoral Code, will not be worth the price of the paper they are written on if there is no political will for change. Such a thing is not observed at this stage, everything is dust in the eyes of the people.
- You have been following how elections are held for a long time. Are the sectional election commissions the big problem. Are they the weak link in the vote, especially in small settlements?
- The sectional election commissions have long since become well-structured criminal elements, whose goal is to replace the voter's vote. Here, the control is total. It is no coincidence that hours before the elections in our country - a wave of applications for changes in the composition of the sectional election commissions flooded the entire country. It got to the point that the Central Election Commission sent instructions not to make replacements at the last minute. As an example, exceptions are possible only for urgent reasons such as the resignation of the chairman or illness.
The most striking was the situation in Haskovo, where the local election commission was the first to decide to introduce an unprecedented measure to stop and prohibit replacements. The commission itself was inundated with requests for replacements in more than 100 sections in Haskovo - or a third of all members in the district. In over 90% of cases, the requested replacements have no motives. In the last week before the vote, over 3,000 people were replaced.
Controlled, corporate and bought votes are evident here.
As I have said before, these are the three pillars of control over the electoral process. If we also take into account the electoral administration, in which the local government actively participates, the picture is complete. Games without borders.
The problem with small settlements is the strong dependence, which is inversely proportional to the size of the settlement. The smaller the settlement, the greater the dependence of local residents on the administration, be it a deputy mayor, mayor of a city hall or municipal administration.
- Do you like the idea of setting up separate census centers? That way, the sectional commissions will disappear. Is this a solution?
- Ideas are born and die. The political class has no intention of dealing with the electoral chaos. This is precisely where the power of the “deep state” lies. The apparent attempts to deal with the problem are pure dust in the eyes of the people. Hidden behind newly formed commissions and round tables, behind meaningless discussions and empty words, the political system is playing ball until it comes up with the next trick. Whether it will be with machines, with ballots or biometric data - again, the method of voting will be controlled by them.
Do you remember the Kostinbrod affair? According to the prosecutor's office, the fraud at that time was to manipulate the election vote by means of 400 thousand ballots printed above the legally permitted voting ballots, which were distributed to the cities - Blagoevgrad, Haskovo, Kardzhali, Pazardzhik, Kyustendil, Shumen, Varna, regional election commissions and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (for Bulgarian citizens abroad who have the right to vote). The ballots printed above the legally permitted ballots were supposed to be used to buy the votes of the voters, mainly through the so-called Indian thread.
At that time, Rossen Zhelyazkov, the current Prime Minister of Bulgaria, at that time the Chief Secretary of the caretaker government, was charged with a crime in office, due to his lack of control over entities related to the electoral process.
Subsequently, the prosecution's thesis was rejected by the Sofia City Court on all counts. The court considered it proven that the ballots found could not be used for electoral fraud. Rosen Zhelyazkov was completely acquitted. The prosecution did not appeal the court's decision.
What followed from this… A round table followed, and the commission for interaction with civil organizations and movements was established. The same, in the summarized REPORT WITH THE PROPOSALS OF CIVIL ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS AND CITIZENS, made proposals for Changes in the election rules, some of which were:
- a ban on one person running for office in more than one electoral district, the creation of an independent, permanently operating, professional and depoliticized election administration; the composition of the CEC may be reduced provided that it has become a permanently operating election administration; the legislative branch and the president should have equal quotas in its constitution; a relatively long mandate for the members of the commission, as well as renewal on a rotational basis similar to the renewal of the composition of the Constitutional Court, introduction of machine / electronic / remote voting; clearing the electoral rolls of “dead souls”; active registration of voters, drafting rules and procedures regarding appealing the results of elections, so that the court accepts the presented/requested evidence, including recounting ballots.
Sound familiar to you?
Proposals were made for a new Methodology for determining the election result, which would be part of the Electoral Code, the Central Election Commission to become a permanent body – its members to be engaged full-time within their five-year mandate. The body to consist of 9 to 11 members – composed on an expert basis, and not on political quotas. The Electoral Code should regulate a transparent procedure for appointing members of the Central Election Commission. The Electoral Code should create a separate chapter to guarantee the rights and obligations of independent observers. The Electoral Code should provide for a recount of ballots in sections where more than twice as many invalid votes were recorded as compared to the national average, etc. Twelve years later, nothing has changed. Everything has remained as good wishes.
In Bulgaria, while disgusted Bulgarian citizens refuse to cast their votes, “dead souls” vote. Unfortunately, the civic energy from the 2020 protests has died down. Once again, the hordes were deceived. Another messiah has failed.