Is the Constitutional Court playing politics, or is it ruling in the name of truth. Will we have a crisis in governance after the "Majesty" party enters parliament… Political scientist Prof. Milena Stefanova speaks to FACTI.
- Prof. Stefanova, has the Constitutional Court also become a political player, if we listen to what the parties in the ruling majority tell us, that thanks to it, and not through elections, the "Majesty" party entered parliament?
- I would urge politicians to be more careful in their speech. Parties are the foundation of democracy. In fact, the composition of all electoral bodies is under their control. If the electoral process is flawed, we cannot expect the Constitutional Court to establish otherwise. The judges base their conclusions on proven facts. Were not the same parties that participated in the elections and won seats in the National Assembly the main ones that filed requests to the Constitutional Court to annul the elections? The PP "Majesty" enters parliament thanks to the reduced value of the 4% barrier and the additional votes cast for this party. The barrier was reduced because differences were found in the number of actual ballots in the more than 2,000 recounted sections. Even without the barrier being reduced, "Majesty" would have received parliamentary representation. In fact, only this party had a real interest in appealing to the Constitutional Court and requesting a recount of the vote. To say that the Constitutional Court has become a player in the political process is quite an exaggeration.
- And why does the Constitutional Court become bad when it comes up with a decision that really messes up a lot of things, but it is good when the parties insert their candidates into it?
- The composition of the Constitutional Court is formed in a way that it is impossible to completely ignore the role of parties and politicians. Both the National Assembly and the President are political institutions. It goes without saying that some institutions, such as the President and the Constitutional Court, for example, lose their party affiliation after being elected. They are truly independent of the parties when they show with their actions that they make decisions based on objective, verified and proven facts. There will always be people who think that the President is bad, and the Constitutional Court can also become bad if it affects someone's interest.
- The Constitutional Court annulled 780 votes. How do you look at this? Does the Constitutional Court have the right to tell people – „your votes are zero (you did not vote)“…
- The task of the Constitutional Court is to establish the facts according to the requests of the petitioners. In this case, the Constitutional Court appointed three types of expertise, which means that it had to establish the number of valid, invalid and submitted ballots for all participants in the elections from a certain number of sections – over 2000 out of a total of a little more than 12000 sections in the country and abroad. I am deliberately speaking in round numbers to make the information easier to perceive. In fact, the results of 1/6 of the election sections were recounted. And in a little less than half of them, some discrepancies were established. That is, in about 1/12 of all sections there are irregularities, which are of a different nature. At this point, we do not know exactly how many violations of each type established during the recount. We will learn them when the Constitutional Court publishes the protocols of the appointed experts. They promised and I think we will see them soon.
As for the 780 nullified votes, this issue is very problematic. The Constitutional Court has accepted, quite legally, that the proof of a vote cast by voters is the ballots. When there are no open ballots, there are no votes of voters. There are no open ballots because there are no sacks in two of the sections, and in another five there are either no paper ballots or ballots from the machine voting. Accordingly, these votes have been nullified. Which does not mean that the Constitutional Court is telling the voters from these sections that they did not vote. The Constitutional Court is only saying - no ballots were opened. It is not the voters' fault that the ballots disappeared somewhere. Now there is only one question - where are the sacks and where are the ballots? The prosecutor's office must quickly make a decision here. I admit that if I had decided, I would not have reset these votes, but would simply have removed the sections in question from the check. But this is valid in scientific research. In law, it is different. In both cases, the prerequisites for future bag fraud are created.
As it turns out, these 780 votes would not have affected either the entry of “Majesty“ into parliament, or the distribution of mandates between parties.
But trust in the elections has been damaged even more, and this is already unforgivable!
- Is there something wrong with the institutions – I mean the Constitutional Court, the Central Election Commission, the “Information Service“ and the Prosecutor's Office, because they really made a big mess. Who was who in the whole thing about the information requirement. Where did the statehood go…
- Let's not forget the president's reactions. Most of the comments were quite inappropriate, but they were caused by communication errors. Unnecessary tension was created and an expectation was established
that the elections were completely flawed, that the violations were endless and the effect of the Constitutional Court's decision would be an apocalypse.
This is not true, the institutions are legitimate and have fulfilled their duties. Now it is up to us, the observers, researchers and civil activists, to prove with concrete data that the apocalypse has been postponed for another time. And we will rely on the media to popularize the information, of course, after the protocols of the Constitutional Court experts become public.
- And again the question of only machine voting was raised, because it would be more honest. Paper versus machine - are we spinning in a vicious circle!
- I think that the experiment with exactly this type of machine voting should end.
The request now to introduce only machine voting again is not realistic,
because the Constitutional Court has also established a discrepancy between the data from the flash memories of the machines and the number of submitted ballots from machine voting, which the section committees report and count. Similar glaring discrepancies are also discovered during inspections of administrative courts in connection with contesting the results of local elections.
I think that the violations discovered should be analyzed very seriously and amendments should be made to the Election Code to neutralize them. It is evident that many of the violations are committed at the level of section commissions.
The conclusion is simple - section commissions should not count ballots.
They should only ensure the normal course of election day in the section. Voting should be conducted only on paper, with ballots placed in opaque boxes that are factory-sealed. After the end of the election day, each section commission (which does not need to have many members and 3 would be enough) takes the electoral list, the unsealed box and the remaining unused ballots to a regional counting center, where a check is made for the correspondence of the total number of ballots and the number of voters on the electoral list, and the ballots, without being counted by party, are mixed with ballots from other sections. This would make it possible to limit the controlled vote. The commissions in the counting centers should not be broadcast on a party basis, but the parties can have advocates and observers. There should also be video surveillance here. It will no longer be necessary in the sections. Here, if so many want, scanning machines for counting and reporting the votes cast by party should also be introduced. Sounds good, right?
But let's guess whether the parties are willing to deprive themselves of the existing opportunities for controlling and falsifying the vote!
It is a matter of judgment as to how many sections with a corresponding number of voters to form a counting center. Somehow it becomes clear that the bags will not have such a significance, because there will be scanned ballots. It is a matter of legal norms and the legislator must think very carefully and decide on such a change.
Another issue that needs additional regulation is mobile ballot boxes. The Constitutional Court established quite disturbing facts. We must also think about the voter lists, because in the current situation there is a lot of speculation about voter turnout. And if counting centers are introduced with a reduced composition of the section commissions, they should not start making a fuss by filling in ballots of non-existent voters. It is not easy, not at all easy. It is also possible to think about raising the barrier to entry into parliament.
- Party “Velichie“ in parliament. What calculations went wrong …
- Oh, all the formations represented in the National Assembly are paying for the irregularities committed during the elections. Undoubtedly, the ruling majority is the most vulnerable, because it was left with 5 deputies less and settled at only 121 votes. Whether and how they will cope - remains to be seen. I think that none of the parties in the National Assembly wants elections now, regardless of the declarations of parties such as “Vazrazhdane“ and MECH. We should probably also include “Velichie“ here. At least that's what the preliminary requests are.
The opposition is becoming even more divided, which in turn helps the majority.
It would be interesting to see PP-DB, “Vazrazhdane“, MECH and “Velichye“ in one team. And again, they won't have enough votes without DPS-New Beginning. I think that PP-DB are the biggest losers from the position they occupy. All the others are vocal populists and PP-DB are often tempted to also sometimes take radical positions. They shouldn't, because they will only lose. And the opposite behavior would bring them closer to the ruling majority. It's complicated.
Let's also note another disadvantage - for observers and commentators it will become even more annoying, because the number of populist, unconstructive and purely demagogic statements from the rostrum will increase.
- What votes can the “Zhelyazkov“ cabinet count on now. BSP and ITN do not want elections, but rely on DPS-New Beginning…
- Support from DPS – New Beginning is possible to observe when necessary. This will not make this party part of the ruling majority, but they will probably try to bargain something. We will see. Let's not forget that elections of regulators and other bodies independent of the legislative and executive branches are coming up. And the budget is about to be finally adopted. The Finance Committee has already approved Peevski's idea to open shops in post offices, which in itself is not only controversial, it is insane.
Let's assume, just hypothetically, that it comes to blaming the cabinet. What comes next? Handing over the mandates to form a government by the president. It starts again with GERB as the first political force. And then PP-DB are on the move again, because a normal government could not be formed without the participation of the first two. Well, in my opinion, no one wants to get to such a situation. Everyone, for different reasons, does not want it. Some of the political forces would like it very much, but it will not work out for them, because there is no one with whom and how to form a majority. The situation is a stalemate and will remain so, because reason did not prevail when a majority was formed.
In general, all the tensions in the country over the last two or three years, especially now, are caused by the adoption of the euro. If the government, the majority in the National Assembly hold their positions and Bulgaria becomes part of the Eurozone, the situation will radically change.
The battle is between the pro-European and pro-Kremlin parts of society and the parties that defend these positions.
And to top it all off, we have dynamic processes of changing the global agenda after President Trump took office. It will not be easy at all, but we must endure and become part of the Eurozone. Then we will be many times more protected and benefited in any way – not only economically and financially, but also geopolitically.
- To hear from Boyko Borisov that nothing can be voted on without Delyan Peevski. Is this the new stability in government?
- This statement by Borisov is yet another one that shows that he is offended by the DB and PP. Because things would be much different if these two formations - or at least DB, had found common priorities and had put them in a governing form. And when I remember that it was presented to us that no agreement was reached because of an unsigned, clumsy declaration about a cordon over Peevski, I feel sad. I do not rule out the possibility that some talks are being held with PP-DB by GERB. We will not even know about them if they do not put on a governing form. However, Peevski is invariably present in every statement made by a representative of PP-DB. I even wonder how much power this person must have to be everywhere in the country. But they are pursuing their policy of constantly sticking to Borisov and Peevski. This appeals to their voters.
- Dogan's MRF supports the cabinet, but are they also becoming dependent on MRF – New Beginning?
- I don't think it's about dependence on MRF-New Beginning. MRF-MPS, or Dogan's faction, is now supporting the majority. We have seen in the last month how MRF-MPS is raising its price with demands for the appointments of their people in the second echelon of power. And we have seen that the BSP has agreed to allocate them some seats from the BSP quota. If Peevski wants to intervene, as Borisov says “without us asking him”, the price of MRF-MPS drops precipitously. This is the battle of the two MRF factions.