During a series of meetings on the organization and holding of the upcoming parliamentary elections, President Rumen Radev stressed that “it is important to have parity during the election campaigning, so that Bulgarians will have political representation in the next parliament”.

President Radev reiterated that the primary objective is to safeguard the health of the citizens of Bulgaria and to guarantee their right to vote, as well as public trust that the election is fair.

During the president’s first meeting, Toshko Yordanov, deputy chairman of the party “There are such people” stated that they will comply with any date set down by president Radev for the holding of parliamentary elections.

After the meeting that followed with the leadership of the Democratic Bulgaria alliance, the coalition’s co-chairman Atanas Atanasov stressed that as broad a scope of the public as possible must be called upon to take part in controlling and monitoring of the elections.  

On his part the Bulgarian head of state laid emphasis on the need to have mobile video surveillance of the vote-counting, mobile ballot boxes for the people under quarantine, vote-by-mail from abroad, machine voting and guarantees that it will be fair.  

The president held meetings with two more formations – the civic platform Izpravi Se.BG (Stand Up.BG) and Vuzrazhdane party. According to Izpravi Se.BG leader former Ombudsman Maya Manolova the only guarantors of a fair vote are the presidential institution, the political forces not represented in parliament and the Bulgarian citizens. She proposed the establishment of a citizens’ election commission, under the auspices of the president, for monitoring the election process and organizing parallel vote-counting.

Vuzrazhdane party also demanded that civil society organizations play the role of observers during the elections so as to avoid manipulations.