President Rossen Plevneliev has proposed a national referendum to take place simultaneously with the local elections on October 25. The people should say there whether MPs shall be elected via a majority vote, whether voting shall be mandatory from then on and whether there will be a distant, digital vote. The head of state admits that his proposal is not much different than the one he gave about a year ago, with small corrections only.

The proposal might be an old one, but the circumstances under which the referendum idea occurs again are new ones. The previous proposal of the head of state was overruled by the parliamentary majority of the socialists, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the nationalist Ataka, which are now the opposition. The majority feared back then that a referendum on the voting rules would compromise its efforts for changes in the election law. Now the Parliament has a new majority and the relations between the three above-mentioned parties are tense.

The major forces that govern today – GERB and the Reformist Bloc want the referendum to take place. That was their attitude before as well. A week ago GERB introduced changes in the law on referendums, which eased the conducting of those simultaneously with elections. One of the amendments obliges the president to appoint the national referendum on the same date with national polls, if any are forthcoming within a term of one year since the parliamentary decision for the mass consultation. Thus practically the governing party links referendums to the local elections in 2015, to the presidential ones in 2016 and the parliamentary vote in 2018. The Reformist Bloc on the other hand introduced changes to the laws on referendums, suggesting the reducing of the thresholds for their summoning and recognition.

The rest of the political parties have so far voiced no reactions on the matter, but there have been some statements, giving grounds to some forecasts. The socialists will probably support the referendum, as its members recalled that though the party had been against its conducting a year ago, during the preparation of the Election Code it had also proposed a mandatory and digital vote with a majority element. The nationalist Patriotic Front said they did uphold the implementation of the compulsory vote, which prompted their attitude towards the referendum was positive too.

The nationalists from Ataka will probably vote against, since those proposed in March a referendum to be organized on Bulgaria’s NATO membership.

The Movement for Rights and Freedoms will be also against, as its leader Liutvi Mestan commented end-March that the compulsory vote referendum would be against his party. According to the Movement, the politicians try to transfer to the voters the responsibility for the low turnout. Actually, according to most politicians the MRF is the one that benefits from the low turnout most.

The proposal for a national referendum will have to be discussed now by the legal committee of the National Assembly and introduced for voting to the plenary hall. The law says that MPs only have the right to editorial corrections on the questions, but must not touch their meaning.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev