Bulgarian supreme court orders electoral commission to register Peevski’s coalition for October’s parliamentary elections
In a ruling on September 11, Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court said that the Central Electoral Commission’s (CEC) refusal to register Delyan Peevski’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning coalition for the October elections was illegal, and ordered the CEC to register the coalition “immediately”.
This the latest episode in the contest between Peevski and MRF founder and honorary president Ahmed Dogan, whose faction has bid to stand in the October 27 early parliamentary elections as a coalition called Democracy, Rights and Freedoms. The CEC turned down the application by the Dogan group.
The Supreme Administrative Court’s decision on Peevski’s coalition is final and not subject to appeal.
The decision came in the final hours before the September 11 5pm deadline for parties and coalitions to apply to the CEC for registration for the elections, though court rulings on disputed CEC decisions on registration applications may be implemented up to September 24.
The court found that the CEC had erred in not registering an application sent online by Peevski soon after midnight on September 2.
The court accepted that Peevski’s application had been sent before that of the Dogan coalition.
Citing its own precedent from 2022 and that of the Stara Zagora Administrative Court in 2021, the court said that the Electronic Government Act obliged administrative bodies to provide all their services electronically as well.
The court said that this meant that applicaton for registration of an electoral coalition could be signed both manually and electronically.
It said that CEC had acted unlawfully by not giving the electronic application a serial number, not considering it separately and instead attaching it to a paper application submitted by Peevski’s coalition at the same time as Dogan’s coalition.
The court also found that the CEC had erred in its requirement for the two coalitions regarding showing that they did not involve one and the same party.
In a separate decision on September 11, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal by Peevski’s group against the CEC decision not to approve the application for registration of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms-New Beginning coalition for three local by-elections scheduled for October 20.
The September 11 decisions by the Supreme Administrative Court came a day after the court declined to proceed with two appeals lodged by the Peevski faction against the CEC decision to delete the registration of the MRF for the October 20 local by-elections.
The court said that the Sofia City Court’s records showed Peevski and (Dogan loyalist) Dzhevdet Chakurov as co-chairpersons of the MRF, and said that the actions of the two contradicted each other.
In this situation, the court said that it was impossible for it to establish what the MRF’s will was, and the court could not resolve disputes between the two co-chairpersons, each of whom had the authority to represent the MRF alone.
The Supreme Administrative Court is due to hear on September 12 an appeal by Dogan’s coalition against the CEC’s refusal to register it from the national elections.
On September 11, Roumen Yonchev, of an agrarian party that is part of Dogan’s coalition, lodged an application to the CEC to register a coalition called Alliance for Rights and Freedoms.
(Photo: Chris Potter)
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