site.btaPolitical Parties React to Constitutional Court Ruling

On Thursday, Bulgaria witnessed a series of major political developments triggered by the Constitutional Court’s partial annulment of the October 27, 2024 elections, which invalidated the mandates of 16 MPs in the 51st National Assembly. Consequently, Velichie [Grandeur] crossed the threshold and qualified for seat allocation.

With a decision of the Central Election Commission later the same day, the seats in the 51st National Assembly were reallocated as follows:

GERB-UDF: 66 seats (down from 69)
Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB): 36 (down from 37)
Vazrazhdane: 33 (down from 35)
Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF)–New Beginning: 29 (down from 30)
Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS): 19 (unchanged)
BSP – United Left: 19 (down from 20)
There Is Such a People (TISP): 17 (down from 18)
Morality, Unity, Honour (MECh): 11 (down from 12)
Velichie: 10 (none before)

Four political parties responded to the Constitutional Court ruling.

“We will not stop fighting,” Velichie [Grandeur] said in a press release, calling the Constitutional Court’s partial annulment of the October 27, 2024 elections “a small but well-deserved reward” for volunteers and supporters. The party maintained that the elections were “unfair” and “manipulated” and vowed to continue exposing what it terms “criminal governance.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev addressed concerns about potential risks to the government’s stability, saying: “If a government focuses on surviving, it will get nothing done.” He acknowledged “forming this majority was so hard,” adding that “even its existence is difficult in some kind of dynamic stability regime.”

Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) MP Kiril Petkov said that “the tallied votes for two parties, GERB-UDF and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF)–New Beginning, outnumber the votes cast by the largest margin,” referring to MRF–New Beginning as “the champions” with “more than 1,100” allegedly inflated votes. Petkov ruled out any talks with MRF–New Beginning, citing “a cordon sanitaire” around their floor leader Delyan Peevski. CC-DB Co-Floor Leader Nadejda Iordanova called for a “broad political consensus” on election reforms and stressed the need to introduce machines to reduce human error.

Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) called for “urgent amendments to election legislation” to guarantee that “every vote is important and fairly counted.” The BSP Executive Board warned that “any political destabilisation is dangerous” and could hamper efforts to address pressing social problems.