Bulgaria’s electoral commission in new move on warring MRF factions
Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC), faced with two factions of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms each claiming to be the legitimate one, made a new move on September 4 – by saying that the MRF cannot, by law, be in two coalitions at the same time, and telling both to show that the MRF is not a party to their intended electoral coalitions.
This is the latest twist in the conflict between the two factions – one loyal to founder and honorary president Ahmed Dogan, the other to Delyan Peevski – as each vies to claim to be the authentic representative of the MRF brand in Bulgaria’s early parliamentary elections to be held on October 27.
The faction loyal to Dogan has signalled its intention to stand in the elections in a coalition called “MRF – Democracy Rights and Freedoms”, while the Peevski faction wants to stand as the “MRF – New Beginning” coalition. To do so, each has taken on board partner parties of significant obscurity.
Already on the morning of September 4, constitutional experts were in the television studios pointing out that Bulgarian electoral law not only does not allow contestants in elections to use the same name, but also they also may not use the same abbreviation, even if as part of a longer name.
Technically, though the Dogan faction has announced the ouster of Peevski as co-leader and a member of the MRF, Peevski and Dogan loyalist Dzhevdet Chakurov remain registered as co-leaders of the MRF. This gives them equal, if conflicting, rights over registering the party for elections.
At the beginning of the week, the CEC, attempting to not being seen as the arbiter in the dispute as to who is the valid standard-bearer of the MRF, decided, not without controversy, to accept both applications for registration simultaneously. This bid to not be seen as guilty of favouritism led both camps to accuse the CEC of favouritism.
At that point, it became clear that each faction intend competing as part of coalitions.
However, at a meeting on September 4 that started several hours later than its scheduled time, the CEC – citing the law that a party may not be part of two coalitions in the same election – told the two factions that they had until 5pm on September 7 to show that the MRF (whosoever’s MRF) was not part of the coalition that they intended to register.
In addition, the CEC told the two that each must submit a bank account held in the name of a registered party other than the MRF.
This move by the CEC was opposed by the three commissioners who hold seats on the basis of having been named to the commission by Boiko Borissov’s GERB. They described the CEC’s decision as “meaningless”.
The standoff has seen Peevski – a figure subject to US and UK sanctions for large-scale corruption – insist that he alone represents the MRF, while the camp of Dogan – a veteran wily politician long since exposed as having been a collaborator of communist-era secret service State Security – present themselves as the “authentic MRF”.
The process of registration of parties for Bulgaria’s October early elections – the seventh time in three years that the country elects a legislature – has been complicated by the faction fighting in the MRF.
Similarly, there is grappling in the Bulgarian Socialist Party over who has control of that party’s election candidate lists, creating another reason for the CEC to reach for the worry beads, faced with an election registration situation that in preceding elections has been a routine, if not outright tediously bureaucratic, process.
The CEC’s September 4 meeting had been scheduled to start at 11am, then was moved to 2.30pm and finally began at 6pm, meaning that its latest decision became known only on Wednesday night.
To this decision, adopted by 11 votes in favour with the GERB three against, there was no immediate public response by the respective Peevski and Dogan factions.
(Archive illustration: Interior Ministry)
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