Cet article d’Evropa.Dnevnik.bg se penche sur les élections du Parlement européen qui se tiendront le 20 mai 2007 et pour lesquelles, selon une étude récente, le Groupe socialiste devrait obtenir le plus de voix.
The upcoming elections for Bulgarian representatives in the European Parliament, which will take place on 20 May 2007, are followed with greater interest by the politicians than by the voters themselves.
Bulgaria, which joined the EU on 1 January, is represented at the moment by observers in the European Parliament. The elected MEPs, who start their new job immediately after the election, taking an oath during the first session of Parliament, will have a mandate until the common elections for the European Parliament in 2009.
According to a recent poll, published by Barometer Info on 21 March 2007, the expected electoral attendance is at present only 36%.
Most MEPs elected are expected to be from the Socialist Group, the survey reveals. The present governing coalition in Bulgaria is composed of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), National Movement Simeon the Second (NMSS) and Movement for Right and Freedoms – MRF (who represent the ethnic Turks in Bulgaria).
The polls put the new party of Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov next in line, after the socialists – this would be an excellent start for the new formation GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria).
The European Parliament elections will be the first in the country, which will implement so-called preferential voting – voters will be able to choose from the parties’ lists who they want to be an MEP.
Almost all parties have placed known faces (already in the European parliament as observers) as leaders in their lists, arguing that the margin until the next election is too narrow, and that it’s preferable to have MEPs who already know how the Parliament works.
Three parties have women as leaders in their lists – GERB, NMSS and MFR.
Together with the preferential voting, the principle of settlement, which has raised political tempreatures, was introduced for the first time as well. Its implementation, however, was stultified by the following regulations:
- The opposition and part of the ruling coalition, in the face of NMSS, wanted to bring in restrictions for Bulgarian citizens, who live permanently in a country outside the EU. The idea was to end the so called electoral tourism, which is practised by Bulgarian exiles in Turkey. They are ethnic Turks, who are organised and driven in buses by MRF in Bulgaria to vote in the Bulgarian elections, and;
- the Central election committee for the Parliament elections still hasn’t ruled on whether and how the principle for settlement will be implemented. Following the adoption of the idea, only people who have had a permanent address in the country for at least two months before the elections will be allowed to vote -specialists in election law explain, however, that this will probably not be applied in practice.
In the meantime, another possibility arose – to nominate the Bulgarian nurses, who where sentenced to death in Libya. The idea was accused of being populist by many politicians, but, according to its initiators every opportunity for the salvation of the Bulgarian women, who have been held in a Libyan prison for more than eight years, must be attempted.
There is a plan to change the law so the nurses could be nominated for the upcoming vote in May, according to the Initiative Committee for the nomination of the Bulgarian nurses. But the national parliament recently overruled two motions to discuss the necessary changes.
The Committee sent letters to eight Bulgarian parties, in which it insists that the nurses be placed as leaders on the lists. But only one party, ‘Order, Law and Justice’ supported the idea and on 30 March 2007 began to collect signatures for the electoral registration. In all, 15,000 signatures are needed to allow the party to participate in the elections.