In Bulgaria, sixteen members of parliament lost their seats after the Constitutional Court ruled that they were elected unlawfully. This was discovered during a partial recount of votes after the elections that took place in October, UNN reports with reference to Reuters.
The court considered the election case after a complaint filed by the nationalist party "Velichie", which failed to overcome the 4% barrier to enter parliament by only a few votes.
After the recount, the "Velichie" party received 10 seats, the election commission said during the meeting. The other six seats were distributed among four small parties.
The fragile ruling coalition led by the center-right GERB party lost five seats, but retained a slim majority, with 121 seats in the 240-seat parliament.
It is noted that the Constitutional Court in its statement rejected calls for a full recount of votes. In addition, a partial recount of votes at hundreds of polling stations significantly destabilized the political life of Bulgaria.
Fragmented parties have been unable to gain a majority or form stable coalitions for years.
The October elections, in which GERB won with approximately 26% of the vote, were the seventh elections in four years. But only in January, the Bulgarian Parliament approved a cabinet headed by Rosen Zhelyazkov, a former speaker of the parliament. This happened after months of coalition negotiations.
Addition
Snap elections to the Bulgarian Parliament took place at the end of October 2024. It was stated that the pro-Western center-right coalition of the party "Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria" and the Union of Democratic Forces GERB - SDS passed to the parliament. The liberal-conservative alliance of the party "We Continue the Change" and the coalition "Democratic Bulgaria" came in second in the elections. The pro-Russian party "Revival" also got into the parliament.
Reminder
Last year in June, Bulgaria simultaneously held early parliamentary and European elections, in which about 13,000 polling stations were opened for voting.