Bulgarian supreme court upholds refusal to register Dogan’s Democracy, Rights and Freedoms – MRF coalition for October elections
At a sitting on September 12, Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms founder Ahmed Dogan’s MRF Democracy, Rights and Freedoms coalition against the Central Electoral Commission’s (CEC) refusal to register it for the country’s October 27 early parliamentary elections.
This is the latest court victory for the faction around Delyan Peevski, after the ruling on September 11 that the CEC must register his Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning coalition for the National Assembly elections.
Hours after that court ruling, the CEC unanimously approved the registration of Peevski’s coalition under its full name, in a decision that said that on the ballot paper, the coalition will be referred to as MRF – New Beginning.
The faction around Dogan – who founded the MRF in 1990 and is its honorary president – is to stand n the elections through a newly-registered coalition called the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms.
That coalition was registered on September 11, shortly before applications for registration closed, in the name of two minuscule parties, Fair Bulgaria United Patriots, and the Agrarian National Union.
Thwarted from using the MRF name, the Dogan faction came up with the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms coalition, which does not include the MRF under that name. It had wanted to use the Democracy, Rights and Freedoms name because in Bulgarian, the abbreviation would be the same as that for the MRF.
The Supreme Administrative Court’s September 12 ruling relied on reasoning similar to that in its September 11 ruling in favour of the Peevski coalition. Like Wednesday’s ruling, Thursday’s is final and not subject to appeal.
The court found that of the two claimants to the MRF brand, Peevski’s faction had lodged its first, electronically soon after midnight brought the opening of the first day for registration applications.
The court cited the law that a party may not appear in more than one coalition. In both its September 11 and 12 rulings, the court found that Peevski had lodged an application first.
Although the CEC opened for applications at 9.30am on that first day, September 2, the court ruled that the working hours were “irrelevant”.
The faction fighting has continued, with Dogan loyalist Dzhevdet Chakurov, co-leader of the MRF, lodging an application with the CEC asking for the removal of the MRF from Peevski’s coalition. The Peevski faction countered with an application for Chakurov’s application to be rejected.
On September 12, the CEC decided by 12 votes to two not to proceed with Chakurov’s application.
In the course of months of faction fighting, the grouping around Dogan – a former agent for Bulgaria’s communist-era secret service State Security – has announced the expulsion of Peevski and Peevski’s allies from the MRF. Peevski, the subject of sanctions by the US and the UK for large-scale corruption (an allegation he denies) has rejected this expulsion and continues to be the leader of the official MRF group in Bulgaria’s Parliament.
Throughout the saga of the battles in the CEC and in court between the Peevski and Dogan factions, matters have been complicated by the fact that the official registration of the MRF in the Sofia City Court continues to show Peevski and Chakurov as national co-leaders, conferring on each equal rights to represent the MRF.
(Illustration: Glentamara)
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