site.btaCourt Dismisses BSP's Appeal against Coalition for Bulgaria Election Registration

115 POLITICS - COURT - DECISION - COALITION NAME

Court Dismisses BSP's Appeal
against Coalition for Bulgaria
Election Registration


Sofia, April 16 (BTA) - The Supreme Administrative Court has decided to take no further action on an appeal submitted by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) against the registration of Coalition for Bulgaria for the May 26 European Parliament elections, the Court said on Tuesday. It recalled that only refusals of registration are appealable.

The registration of the coalition led by the ABV Party is challenged on the grounds that the BSP has used the name 'Coalition for Bulgaria' in several elections. The party leadership claims this name is popular and established as a reference solely to the BSP as a political player.

Coalition for Bulgaria, made up of seven parties: ABV, United Labour Block, Political Movement Social Democrats, the Bulgarian Liberals Party, Movement for Social Humanism, Fatherland Revival and the Bulgarian Left, was registered on April 9.

On April 10, BSP legal adviser Aglika Videnova explained that the BSP has patented 'Coalition for Bulgaria' in 14 classes of goods and services related to humanitarian, educational, social, cultural, research, scientific and other activities, as well as all physical expressions related to the election campaign, including the voting ballot bearing that name. She specified that ABV and its coalition partners own a mark registered in a single class covering business activities concerning business and commercial transactions and events.

The original Coalition for Bulgaria was established by then BSP leader Georgi Purvanov after the 1999 local elections and included a varying number of smaller parties ideologically close to the BSP. The coalition participated under that name in the 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013 parliamentary elections and in the 2009 and 2014 European Parliament elections. Purvanov initiated the establishment of the ABV Party in January 2014 and was expelled from the BSP a couple of months later. RY/LG/DD


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