site.btaUPDATED Velichie Asks President, Institutions to Annul Oct. 27 Parliamentary Elections

The Velichie party Wednesday filed a request to President Rumen Radev to petition the Constitutional Court about election annulment. Velichie fell 21 votes short of the 4% electoral threshold as it won 3.999% of the vote.

The request concerning the October 27 parliamentary elections will also be referred to the Prosecutor General, the Council of Ministers, the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court.

Krasimira Katincharova MP of the present Parliament said all political forces would be invited to support the petition. "Their support will be absolutely indicative, as will the actions of the President, of the Constitutional Court, and of every institution to which we will refer the matter today," she commented.

"Any engagement of the main institutions in Bulgaria shows whether they belong to the status quo or side with the people who were lied to once again," Katincharova said. "Velichie is not trying to enter Parliament at any cost, we are working for the principle, to defend democracy," she said.

Katincharova said that more than 100 people had worked around the clock for ten days to watch all the video footage and see as many violations as possible so as to document and present them to the President and the Constitutional Court.

"Contrary to an order by the Central Election Commisison which bans replacing entire section election committees, we found that entire commissions were replaced in more than 400 voting sections in Varna Region on Election Day," said Katincharova. She added that this was done by three parties: GERB, MRF-New Beginning and Vazrazhdane.

Velichie MP candidate Nikolay Pankov said their request came with about 300 pages of evidence based on 4,800 voting sections, a quarter of the total. He said some 500 votes had been taken away from the party. A check on machine voting in 330 sections showed that 447 votes were stolen from Velichie or given to other parties.

The responsible institutions have 15 days to pronounce on the request, he said.

Katincharova said Velichie would back the request of There Is Such a People for election annulment.