site.btaUPDATED On Sept. 2, Election Administration Starts Accepting Documents for Registration of Parties and Coalitions for Oct. 27 Elections

On September 2, the Central Election Commission (CEC) will start accepting documents for registration of parties and coalitions for the October 27 snap parliamentary elections, CE deputy chair and spokesperson Rossitsa Mateva told a news briefing Thursday. According to the approved CEC timeline, the registration will be open until September 11.

CEC has until September 6 to appoint the constituency election commissions. 

CEC has also approved the terms for assigning the work related to machine voting.

CEC Chair Kamelia Neykova said that the October 27 elections will be held in the same way as the June 9 elections. The government is yet to approve the chart of accounts for the elections and will likely assign a minister in charge of the elections.

Neykova called on the media to cover the work of CEC "in an objective manner so as to make sure the whole election process goes smoothly".

These will be the seventh parliamentary elections in Bulgaria since 2021, six of them snap.

The case of MRF, BSP 

Neykova also commented the situation with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) where rifts over the leadership are expected to complicate registration for the election and other election-related processes.

Of MRF, she said that there is one party registered with the name "Movement for Rights and Freedoms" at the Sofia City Court. "When documents are submitted to CEC, CEC will review these and will make a decision," she said. She added that CEC cannot comment issues in the political parties.

Asked whether any CEC members have received any threats, she said she is not aware of any. "I asked the commission members and none of them said of any threats," she added.

Ivan Chenchev of BSP said on Nova TV Thursday that CEC members have been pressured, presumably to support deleting former BSP leader Korneliya Ninova as the representative of the BSP for Bulgaria coalition. Chenchev is among the aides of Korneliya Ninova and was authorized by her to represent the party in the procedure ahead of the October 27 elections, among with Georgi Svilenski.

Neykova explained, "CEC entered in its registers for the 51st National Assembly a change of the representative of the BSP for Bulgaria coalition, as was declared before CE. The decision is made by the coalition partners and we made sure our registers match the decision".