Early elections in Bulgaria took place a week ago and talks on forming a new government have already started, but disputes about the vote of Bulgarian emigrants to Turkey continue. The DOST union that broke away from DPS and failed to enter parliament, said it would sue Bulgaria at the European Court of Human Rights because of blockades of border crossings with Turkey, organized by nationalist formations, which prevented thousands of Bulgarian emigrants to the neighboring country from exercising their right to vote in Bulgaria.

The government confirms there were protests at the border but not an actual blockade. Prime Minister Ognyan Gerdzhikov also voiced his support for the requirement that voters should fill voting declarations themselves and that every voter should know the official language in Bulgaria. DOST leader Lutfi Mestan said that the CEC had committed a crime by introducing a requirement for literacy and accused Prime Minister of obscurantism. At the request of the Protest Network Union prosecutors began a preliminary check of three candidates for MPs because of protests at the border before the elections. There were also conflicting reports that hundreds of emigrants were deluded that their trip to Bulgaria for the elections would be free. Local website and several dailies wrote that when they realized that they had to pay for their return tickets to Bursa, Izmir and Istanbul, they accused DOST for misleading them. DOST denies that it pays transport costs to emigrants, but the carrier company announced that "procedures for free travel have already been completed." The prosecution has not started a check on this case yet, but there is the feeling in society that there was free transportation and therefore manipulation or buying votes for a certain party.

To all this mess we should add the news that the Bultürk Association for Cooperation and Culture in Istanbul plans to call on the government in Turkey to look for responsibility for the failure of DOST in the Bulgarian elections. According to the chairman association, "claims that they have influence in Bulgaria and would surely enter the Bulgarian Parliament misled a number of Turkish politicians and institutions that directly or indirectly supported them." Disputes about the vote of immigrants in Turkey are not new, but this time they caused tensions not only between political parties but between the two countries at the backdrop of the delicate pre-election situation in Bulgaria and tensions related to the referendum in Turkey. Opinions have been voiced in Bulgarian society that more precise legal regulation of voting of Bulgarians abroad should be introduced, as today’s problems might multiply in the future.