Nearly five months after the last early parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, the 51st National Assembly has "grown" by one party and is now formed by nine political formations. The Constitutional Court declared the election of 16 MPs illegal, and the "Velichie" party, which initially remained below the threshold to enter Parliment, has now passed the 4% barrier and has its own group with 10MPs.

To what extent "Velichie" will change the political landscape in parliament and whether it will cause turbulence in the ruling majority, which has shrunk to 121 MPs, remains to be seen. ''The party is certainly not a random phenomenon in Bulgarian political life", said sociologist Parvan Simeonov from the polling agency "Myara". In the 50th National Assembly, the party was again the smallest political force, but its parliamentary group disintegrated after the withdrawal of some MPs, including one of its leaders, Nikolai Markov.

"Velichie" is supported by several important pillars, explains sociologist Parvan Simeonov in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. "One is their ideology, which is slightly nationalistic. The second pillar is the business model upon which it rests. It relies on aggressive marketing linked to various economic sectors, and its founders have the necessary infrastructure to achieve this. The third thing is the specific slightly religious nature of the formation. This party exudes something authentic, by which I mean natural. The proof of this is that we are witnessing its new entry into parliament, despite the severe scandals and the collapse it experienced last time."

Although made only on the basis of a recount of votes in 2,204 polling stations, the Constitutional Court's decision reveals a number of problems in the way election results are reported in this country:

"With paper ballots, it was found that votes for one candidate list were counted incorrectly or the result for one candidate list was reported incorrectly," said Ivilina Alexieva, former chairperson of the Central Election Commission and an expert on the legality of the 51st National Assembly elections, in an interview for BNR.

According to her, there were also cases of incorrect vote counting, where 20 ballots were counted as 19.

"Elections in Bulgaria are not so flawed, but their public image is really very unpleasant. We are about to make the public get used to the idea that elections in Bulgaria are terrible, even though they are not. And this is very dangerous, because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy", says Parvan Simeonov, pointing out that the urgent changes in the Electoral Code are related to the demographic collapse in our country.

"In smaller settlements, we do not have the ability to guarantee a fair electoral process because people in the sectional election commissions are becoming increasingly dependent, and poverty forces them to view elections as a source of income. That's why I think we need to move towards some form of centralized counting centers to eliminate ballot rigging. I also believe that we cannot guarantee to the people that the election process is fair when there are so many wrong tally sheets. It is important for the parties to reach a consensus on this and make sure that, with small, carefully considered steps, these changes are implemented."

As for how voting is carried out – whether with paper ballots or machines, the sociologist is convinced:

"It's not so important whether voting is done by machine or paper. However, counting should be increasingly automated. We can push in that direction because that way it will be very clear whether the vote I cast is the one I put in the ballot box. The big problem doesn't come from putting paper ballots in the box, but from the tally sheets, which are full of errors. Even if they are a small percentage, they create the feeling that this is becoming a widespread phenomenon. That's why we need to implement simplified machine counting to avoid these errors", sociologist Parvan Simeonov concluded.