site.btaBulgaria's November 14, 2021 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections: Facts and Figures

November 12 (Lyubomir Gigov of BTA) - After a 30-day
campaign (October 15 - November 12) and a day of reflection,
Bulgarians at home and abroad are going to the polls on Sunday
to elect their new head of State and lawmakers. These will be
the country's thirteenth parliamentary elections since the start
 of democratic changes in 1989 and the seventh to be held before
 the legislature has served its full four-year term in office.
The simultaneous presidential elections will be Bulgaria's
seventh under the effective Constitution of 1991, and their
winner will be the sixth holder of this office.

For the first time ever, Bulgarian elections are conducted in
this combination. Just as uniquely, the presidential polls are
organized by a caretaker Cabinet appointed by an incumbent
president seeking a second term rather than by a regular
government elected by the National Assembly. In yet another
first, these are the third legislative elections taking place
within a single calendar year, after the parliaments elected on
April 4 and July 11 failed to render up a government and had to
be dissolved. Both types of elections will be governed by an
overhauled Election Code (effective May 1, 2021).

The November 14 elections are the third ones to be held amidst
the COVID-19 pandemic, which is having a significant impact,
considering the surge of infections, hospitalizations and
fatalities during the fourth coronavirus wave and the tightened
anti-infection precautions.

The Directorate General Civil Registration and Administrative
Services (GRAO) at the Ministry of Regional Development and
Public Works puts the tentative number of eligible voters for
Sunday's elections at 6,708,189. The actual number will become
clear right before polling day.

Presidential Elections

Voters

The right to elect a President and Vice President of the
Republic vests in Bulgarian citizens who are aged 18 by polling
day, are not interdicted, and do not serve a custodial sentence.

Candidates

To qualify for election as President and Vice President, a
candidate must be a natural-born Bulgarian citizen, aged 40 by
polling day, who does not hold another citizenship, is not
interdicted, does not serve a custodial sentence, and has had
actual residence and permanent abode within the territory of
Bulgaria during more than half of the time of each of the five
years preceding polling day.

The Central Election Commission has registered 12 parties, 5
coalitions and 11 independent candidate nomination committees
and 23 pairs of candidates for president and vice president for
the November 14 elections. Twelve of the candidates are fielded
by parties, two by coalitions, and nine are independents (albeit
 backed by various parties).

The candidates for president/vice president are listed here in
the order of the sequential numbers, assigned to them by lot,
under which they appear in the ballot:

1. Yolo Denev/Mario Filev (independent)
2. Nikolay Malinov/Svetlana Koseva (Russophiles for the Revival
of the Fatherland Party)
3. Rossen Milenov/Ivan Ivanov (independent)
4. Valeri Simeonov/Tsvetan Manchev (Patriotic Front Coalition)
5. Kostadin Kostadinov/Elena Gouncheva (Vazrazhdane Party)
6. Rumen Radev/Iliana Iotova (independent, backed by BSP for
Bulgaria, the Change Continues and Rise Up BG! Here We Come!)
7. Goran Blagoev/Ivelina Georgieva (National Alliance of the
Right Coalition)
8. Blagoy Petrevski/Sevina Hadjiiska (Bulgarian Union for Direct
 Democracy Party)
9. Marina Malcheva/Savina Lukanova (independent)
10. Alexander Tomov/Luchezar Avramov (Bulgarian Social Democracy
 EuroLeft Party)
11. Volen Siderov/Magdalena Tasheva (Ataka Party)
12. Boyan Rasate/Elena Vatashka (independent, backed by New
Democracy Bulgarian National Union)
13. Zhelyo Zhelev/Kalin Kroulev (Society for New Bulgaria Party)
14. Svetoslav Vitkov/Vesselin Belokonski (PeopleÒs Voice Party)
15. Anastas Gerdjikov/Nevyana Miteva (independent, backed by
GERB-UDF)
16. Luna Yordanova/Iglena Ilieva (independent)
17. Mustafa Karadayi/Iskra Mihaylova (Movement for Rights and
Freedoms Party)
18. Tsveta Kirilova/Georgi Toutanov (independent)
19. Lozan Panov/Maria Kassimova-Moisset (independent, backed by
Democratic Bulgaria)
20. Maria Koleva/Gancho Popov (The Law Party)
21. Milen Mihov/Maria Tsvetkova (VMRO-Bulgarian National
Movement Party)
22. Georgi Georgiev/Stoyan Tsvetkov (Bulgarian National Unity
Party)
23. Vesselin Mareshki/Polina Tsankova (VOLYA Party)

The entrants in the race cut across the political spectrum:
left, right, centrist and nationalist. The pairs of candidates
include incumbent President Rumen Radev and Vice President
Iliana Iotova, two former deputy prime minister (Social Democrat
 Alexander Tomov and nationalist Valeri Simeonov), two former
National Assembly deputy chairpersons (Simeonov and Vesselin
Mareshki of VOLYA), nine political party leaders (Mareshki,
Nikolay Malinov of Russophiles for the Revival of the
Fatherland, Mustafa Karadayi of the Movement for Rights and
Freedoms, Kostadin Kostadinov of Vazrazhdane, Volen Siderov of
Ataka, Georgi Georgiev of Bulgarian National Unity, Boyan Rasate
 of New Democracy Bulgarian National Union, Svetoslav Vitkov of
the PeopleÒs Voice and Maria Koleva of The Law Party), an
outgoing President of the Supreme Court of Cassation (Lozan
Panov), the current Rector of Sofia University (Anastas
Gerdjikov), a retired Air Force colonel (Gerdjikov's running
mate Nevyana Miteva), and a pop folk star (Luna Yordanova). One
party candidate is an exact name sake of Bulgaria's first
democratically elected president, the late Zhelyu Zhelev. The
oldest contestant is Yolo Denev, 83, who for 30 years has been
in the forefront of every protest regardless of the cause. The
male-female ratio among the candidates is over 2 to 1 (3,552 men
 and 1,515 women). The male preponderance is even more marked
among those running for president: 19 men and 4 women. In as
many as 12 of the tickets (including the five front runners), a
male presidential candidate has a lady for a running mate, seven
 tandems are all male, two are all female, and in two cases the
aspirant for the presidency is a woman while her running mate is
 a man.

Three aspirants for the presidency are simultaneously running
for parliament as top-of-the-list candidates: Karadayi,
Kostadinov and Mihov.

Election System

The president and vice president are elected in a two-round
majoritarian system. A candidate must receive more than 50 per
cent of the valid votes cast (including the "None Of The Above"
votes) to be elected in the first round. Failing this, the top
two contest a second round a week later, and the one who gains
most valid votes wins. The candidates for president and vice
president are nominated on joint tickets and are registered in
one single-member constituency, covering the entire territory of
 Bulgaria, including the voting sections abroad. For
administrative and logistics purposes in the presidential
elections, the territory of Bulgaria is divided into 31
districts, coextensive with the constituencies for the last
parliamentary elections. Pre-term presidential vacancies are
filled by new elections.

Parliamentary Elections

Voters

The right to elect National Representatives vests in Bulgarian
citizens who are aged 18 by polling day, are not interdicted,
and do not serve a custodial sentence. Voter registration is
passive. The electoral rolls list people according to their
permanent address in Bulgaria. Persons serving custodial
sentences, interdicts, holders of a non-resident voting
certificate, applicants for voting abroad, and those listed for
voting according to their present address have been removed from
 the standard rolls and are entered on a separate list of
removed persons who are not entitled to be added to the
electoral roll on polling day (so-called "prohibited voter
list").

Candidates

To qualify for election to Parliament, candidates must hold
Bulgarian citizenship only, be aged 21 by polling day, be not
interdicted, and not serve a custodial sentence.

The 240 seats in the next, 47th Ordinary National Assembly will
be contested by 5,067 candidates (3.67 per seat), including
1,237 who stand simultaneously in two constituencies (the
maximum number admissible). Of the candidates, 1,515 are women
and 3,553 are men.

Of these, 5,065 candidates have been nominated by 27 entities
(listed here in the order of the sequential numbers, assigned to
 them by lot, under which they appear in the ballot):

- 20 parties running on straight tickets:
2. Russophiles for the Revival of the Fatherland
4. Vazrazhdane [Revival]
8. Bulgarian Union for Direct Democracy
10. Bulgarian Social Democracy - EuroLeft
11. Ataka [Attack]
13. Society for New Bulgaria
14. Glas Naroden [People's Voice]
15. Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF)
20. Pravoto [The Law]
21. VMRO - Bulgarian National Movement
22. Bulgarian National Unity
23. VOLYA
24. Ima Takuv Narod [There Is Such a People]
26. MIR
27. Blagodenstvie Ö Obedinenie Ö Gradivnost (BOG) [Prosperity Ö
Unity Ö Creativity]
28. New Democracy Bulgarian National Union
29. Direct Democracy
34. Bulgarian Progressive Line
35. Party of the Greens
36. Brigada [Brigade]

- 7 coalitions with 23 parties in aggregate:
4. Patriotic Front (3 parties: National Front for Salvation of
Bulgaria (NFSB); Radicals Bulgarian Democratic Union; Integral
Bulgaria Bulgarian National Democratic Union)
7. National Alliance of the Right (2 parties: Conservative
Alliance of the Right (KOD); Republicans for Bulgaria)
25. Prodalzhavame Promyanata [the Change Continues) (3 parties:
Volt; Middle European Class; Social Democrats Political
Movement)
30. Democratic Bulgaria Alliance (3 parties: Yes, Bulgaria
Movement; Democrats for Strong Bulgaria; Green Movement)
31. Izpravi se BG! Nie Idvame! [Rise Up BG! Here We Come!] (5
parties: Movement 21; Bulgaria of the Citizens Movement; United
People's Party; Agrarian PeopleÒs Union; Movement of Non-Party
Candidates)
32. GERB-UDF (2 parties: Citizens for European Development of
Bulgaria (GERB); Union of Democratic Forces (UDF)
33. BSP for Bulgaria (5 parties: Bulgarian Socialist Party; Nova
 Zora; Communist Party of Bulgaria; Ecoglasnost Political Club;
Trakia Political Club)

Only two candidates are running as independents (Peter Nizamov
in Bourgas and David Levy in SofiaÒs Multi-member Constituency
No. 24), having entered the race through nomination committees.
An independent candidate may stand in only one constituency and
appears at the bottom of the ballot, after the parties and
coalitions.

Election System

National Representatives are elected according to a
semi-proportional system with a single transferable vote. For
election purposes, the country is divided into 31 multi-member
constituencies (3 in Sofia City Region, 2 in Plovdiv Region, and
 26 coextensive with the remaining 26 administrative regions).

A fixed number of seats (varying from 16 to 4) is assigned to
each multi-member constituency: 16 to Sofia City (No. 23), 15 to
 Varna (No. 3), 14 each to Bourgas (No. 2) and Sofia City (No.
25), 12 to Sofia City (No. 24), 11 each to Blagoevgrad (No. 1),
Plovdiv City (No. 16), Plovdiv Region (No. 17) and Stara Zagora
(No. 27), 9 each to Pazardjik (No. 13) and Pleven (No. 15), 8
each to Veliko Turnovo (No. 4), Rousse (No. 19), Sofia Region
(No. 26) and Haskovo (No. 29), 6 each to Vratsa (No. 6), Dobrich
 (No. 8), Sliven (No. 21) and Shoumen (No. 30), 5 each to
Kurdjali (No. 9), Lovech (No. 11) and Montana (No. 12), and 4
each to Vidin (No. 5), Gabrovo (No. 7), Kyustendil (No. 10),
Pernik (No. 14), Razgrad (No. 18), Silistra (No. 20), Smolyan
(No. 22), Turgovishte (No. 28) and Yambol (No. 31).

The allocation of seats at the national level is limited to
parties and coalitions which have gained no less than 4 per cent
 of the valid votes within Bulgaria and abroad and to
independent candidates who have gained valid votes which are no
less than the constituency electoral quota (the total number of
valid votes cast in the constituency divided by the number of
seats allocated for that constituency).

Each party and coalition is allocated seats using the
Hare-Niemeyer Method: the number of seats to be filled is
multiplied by the number of votes won by the party/coalition,
and the result of this calculation is divided by the total
number of valid votes (excluding the valid "None Of The Above"
votes) to obtain the number of seats going to the
party/coalition concerned.

The process is handled by:
- a 15-member Central Election Commission (CEC): responsible for
 the entire country, including for the voting abroad;
- 31 constituency election commissions;
- 13,741 section election commissions: one for each section
where the actual voting takes place.

Polling Day Arrangements

On Sunday, the polls will open at 7:00 a.m. and will close at
8:00 p.m. By exception, if voters are still waiting outside the
polling site at 8:00 p.m., voting may continue until 9:00 p.m.

In Bulgaria, balloting will take place in 12,990 voting
sections. The 1,127 accused and sentenced persons without an
enforceable sentence (662 prison inmates and 465 detainees) will
 be able to vote in 13 sections at all prisons and in 10
sections at pre-trial detention facilities.

For Bulgarians abroad, there are 751 voting sections in 68
countries. The most voting sections abroad, 129, have been
opened in the UK, followed by Turkey (106), Germany (81), Spain
(62), the US (39), Greece (28), Italy (22), the Netherlands (18)
 and France (16).

Voting is de jure compulsory, but the voting obligation is de
facto unenforceable after the Constitutional Court determined by
 a Decision of February 23, 2017 that the penalty for non-voters
 (which consisted in removal from the electoral roll for the
next elections of the same type) was unconstitutional.
Permanently disabled and visually impaired persons, persons with
 ambulant difficulties and those aged over 70 were anyway exempt
 from the obligation to vote. Besides this, non-voting could be
excused by "compelling reasons", which meant absence from
Bulgaria for the period of the parliamentary elections,
engagement with study or business and other unforeseen
circumstances.

In Bulgaria, citizens can practically vote only in the area
where their present address is located. Abroad, however, they
can do so at any voting section of their choice without prior
registration.

For the first time in presidential elections and for the second
time in parliamentary elections, machine voting will be the only
 method that can be employed in all domestic and overseas
sections with at least 300 voters. In Bulgaria, machine voting
will thus take place in 9,399 sections, and 2,121 of them will
have two machines each to prevent long waiting times. Abroad,
voting by machine will be available in a total of 208 sections
in 21 countries, including Turkey (96 machines in 49 sections),
the UK, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy and France, with two
machines in each section.

Paper ballots will be used in 5,808 under-300-voter domestic
sections and for voting by a mobile ballot box (servicing
disabled voters and those quarantined at their permanent address
 as COVID-19 infected or contacts), at hospitals, nursing homes
and other social care institutions, at prisons and pre-trial
detention facilities, and on board Bulgarian-flagged ships, as
well as in 543 sections with fewer than 300 voters abroad.
Voting by paper ballot is also envisaged as a back-up option, in
 case a machine fails, which is why all sections have been
supplied with the appropriate quantity of this election
stationery. Any such switch will require a CEC decision.

For the presidential elections, a uniform combined ballot is
used in all districts. It states the name and number of the
district, the name of the party or coalition, a square with a
sequential number assigned to the ticket, and the forename,
patronymic and surname of the presidential and vice presidential
 candidate. The independent candidates are listed next and,
finally, there is a "None Of The Above" square.

For the parliamentary elections, each constituency has a
separate combined ballot. It states the name and number of the
constituency, the full and/or abbreviated name of the party,
coalition or independent candidate, a square with the sequential
 number assigned to the contestants, a "None Of The Above"
square, and circles with sequential numbers of the candidates on
 the lists whose number corresponds to the doubled number of
seats in the respective constituency. A different type of ballot
 is provided for the voting abroad: it lists only the parties
and coalitions contesting the election, without circles for
preferences.

Political forces which have nominated candidates in the
presidential elections keep their ballot number for their
candidate list in the parliamentary elections.

At the polling site, citizens will be handed a plastic chip
activation card by a section commission member. The voter needs
to insert the card with the chip on the top side into the
touch-screen device. When activated in this way, the machine
will display three options: voting for president and vice
president and for parliament, voting for parliament, or voting
for president and vice president. A person is free to choose any
 of the options. Once this is done, the respective ballot
appears on the touch screen, divided into successive pages. To
register their choice, voters must tap the appropriate area on
the electronic ballot, which will change its colour when
selected. Then a review button has to be pressed to display
their choice, so they can check whether it is correct. If not or
 if they have changed their mind, they can repeat the process.
When the vote is confirmed, the machine will print out a
separate voter-verified paper record for the two types of
election (differing in length), indicating the party/coalition
of the voterÒs choice and the name of the preferred candidate
(if any), which has to be folded and deposited in a special
machine voting box.

If they use paper ballots, voters have to check the square with
the sequential number of the party/coalition/independent
candidate or the "None Of The Above" square with an "X" or a "V"
 sign, using a ballpoint pen writing in blue ink. In the
parliamentary elections, a single preference for a candidate on
a party list may be expressed by marking his or her number on
the list by an "X" or a "V" in a circle. The ballot paper is
then folded in a way making the marked choice invisible and is
deposited in a transparent ballot box without an envelope.

The electronic and paper versions of the ballot look exactly the
 same.

Twenty Bulgarian non-governmental organizations will monitor
Sunday's elections. Four international and foreign organizations
 have registered observation missions with 43 observers in
aggregate: the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic
Cooperation (4 observers), the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe (28 observers), the Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (9 observers), and
the National Assembly (Milli Mejlis) of Azerbaijan (2observers).

Four sociological agencies have registered to conduct exit polls
 on polling day: Gallup International Balkan, Alpha Research,
Trend Research Centre, and Market LINKS. They will use 1,127
poll takers in aggregate. LG/LG

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