site.btaPresident Dismiss Party Complaints about Date of Elections

ESD 17:27:01 17-01-2021
PP1724ES.108
108 POLITICS - ELECTIONS - PRESIDENT - COMMENT

President Dismiss Party Complaints
about Date of Elections, Attacks Government for
Mishandling COVID Crisis


Sofia, January 17 (BTA) - Talking to the press on the sidelines of a public event in Sofia Sunday, President Rumen Radev dismissed some party complaints about the date of the general elections he had set, April 4, and used the opportunity to reiterate his criticism of the government for mishandling the COVID-19 crisis. "Parties have no grounds to make pretensions to the date of the vote," said the President, recalling that these are regular elections.

When he scheduled the national elections for April 4 last week, most parties said they were ready for elections on any date but the ruling GERB party pointed out that it falls on the Easter of the Catholic Church and the Armenian Church, and it might prevent people belonging to these churches from voting.

The Catholic Church in Bulgaria declined to comment on the date of the elections. A spokesperson for the Episcopal Conference of Bulgaria told reporters Sunday that the Church and the state function on two separate planes and neither interferes in the affairs of the other.

The President said that according to him the best date for elections was already in September, after people ran out of patience with the government in July and demanded its resignation.

"The past months took the life of thousands of Bulgarians, because the government did not prepare the country for the second wave of the pandemic," said the head of State, adding that billions were siphoned off from the budget during these months. According to him, these losses could have been prevented if the elections had been held on time.

"Now the question is not so much when, but how the elections will be held. The incumbent refuse to take the urgent steps to repair the election process, That's why we have to make sure that the law is observed," said the President.

At the invitation of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria and in line with a longstanding tradition President Radev attended a holy liturgy at Sofia's St Joseph Cathedral and the ordination of an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sofia and Plovdiv, who will be seated permanently in Sofia. LN/PP