BULGARIA'S OCTOBER 28 LOCAL ELECTIONS: RULES AND PROCEDURES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SOFIA 001176

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SUBJECT: BULGARIA'S OCTOBER 28 LOCAL ELECTIONS: RULES AND PROCEDURES



1. (U) SUMMARY: Bulgaria will hold elections on October 28 for
mayors and municipal counselors in 264 municipalities for a
four-year term in office. Mayors are elected individually. Where
no mayoral candidate has won more than 50 percent of the votes cast
in the first round, there will be a run-off on November 2 between
the two front-runners. Municipal counselors are elected through a
system of proportional representation under which parties and
coalitions put up lists of candidates in each municipality. The
elections will be preceded by a month-long campaign beginning on
September 27. Preliminary results are announced by the municipal
electoral commission, usually within several hours of the 7 p.m.
poll closing. This is the fifth municipal election since communism
collapsed in 1989 and Bulgaria's first local election in which
foreign EU nationals are also eligible to vote. END SUMMARY


Municipalities


2. (U) Municipal elections are ordinarily not a true barometer of
national politics and party strength: local factors and
personalities way heavily for voters. Several parties are likely to
claim "victory" after results are in based on self-interest. A
companion cable in October will address issues and politics.
Bulgaria's centralized government system until recently gave little
power to local administrations. This changed with the 2006
constitutional amendments, which boosted fiscal decentralization and
allowed the municipalities to set local taxes and fees. The role of
the local governments is set to increase further as the
municipalities are primary beneficiaries of hundreds of millions of
euros of EU aide for infrastructure upgrade and structural reform
projects. A total of 88 parties are running in this year's local
elections, compared to 146 parties in 2003. PM Stanishev's
Socialist Party (BSP),which has a solid base at the local level, is
facing a strong challenge by the new populist party (GERB) of Sofia
Mayor Boiko Borissov. Traditional center-right parties look to
bounce back after lackluster showings in elections for the European
Parliament. Pundits are focusing on a GERB-BSP horse-race.


3. (U) Mayors are elected individually through a majority vote. The
names of all candidates for the given municipality are written on
one ballot together with the name of the party or coalition on whose
ticket they run, or with the name of the initiative committee
backing the independent candidates. Voters check the candidate of
their choice. To strengthen further local government, this year
Bulgaria introduced the direct election of district mayors
(responsible for a given district within the city, report to the
mayor) of the three biggest cities - Sofia (24 districts),Plovdiv
(6) and Varna (5). Previously, district mayors were elected by the
municipal councils. Voters cast separate ballots for municipal and
district mayors. Where no mayoral candidate wins more than 50
percent of the valid votes cast in the first round, a run-off will
be held November 2 between the two front-runners. The winner in the
run-off is determined by a simple majority.


4. (U) Municipal counselors are elected through a system of
proportional representation, under which parties and coalitions put
up rank-ordered lists of candidates in each municipality. Voters
cannot change the candidates' order or add or delete names on the
party lists. Thus, people cast their vote for the party rather than
the individual. Seats in each municipal council are allocated to
the parties and coalitions in the same ratio as the distribution of
the vote between the different parties and coalitions in the given
municipality. The number of municipal counselors in each
municipality varies depending on its population, the minimum is 11.
The largest municipal council, in the capital Sofia, consists of 61
counselors.


Central Electoral Commission



5. (U) The Central Electoral Commission (CEC),whose 25 members are
nominated by the parliamentary parties, organizes and supervises the
elections. Seats in the CEC are distributed among parties pro rata
to their representation in parliament. The election in each
municipality is organized by municipal electoral commissions which
have between 11 and 17 members, nominated by the parliamentary
parties and formed according to the same principle. Parties first
register with the CEC, and then separately with the municipal
electoral commissions to get on the local ballots. This dual
registration is required because of Bulgarian political parties'
practice to form different coalitions in different municipalities
for the local elections. For example, parties which back one and
the same mayoral candidate or run on a joint ticket for municipal
counselors in one municipality could be rivals in another.


6. (U) The election is preceded by a month-long campaign starting on
September 27. Campaigning is forbidden the day before election day
and on election day. Incumbent mayors and state administration
employees who contest the election take a leave of absence for the
campaign. This does not apply, however, to the incumbent municipal

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counselors who continue to attend the municipal council's sessions
even if they are running for re-election. The incumbent municipal
councils operate on a lame-duck basis until their successors are
sworn in following the vote.

Who Can Vote


7. (SBU) Official data show there are 6.96 million eligible voters
in Bulgaria (CEC officials acknowledge this figure needs to be
updated to remove names of voters who have moved or passed away.
The true figure is probably about one million less.). Voting age is

18. For the 2007 local election, Bulgaria introduced an additional
requirement which triggered heated debates in parliament. It
requires Bulgarians and other EU citizens to have resided in the
given municipality for at least 10 months prior election date to be
eligible to vote. The move is clearly aimed at the ethnic Turkish
Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF),a junior coalition partner
in the Socialist-led government. It seeks to curb a Bulgarian
post-communist electoral practice known as "electoral tourism" in
which MRF buses dual citizens from Turkey to vote for the MRF in
areas with predominantly ethnic Turkish population. The legislative
amendment may fail to achieve its intended result as the law does
not give a clear definition of "resident" and most dual citizens
(including likely MRF voters) have Bulgarian identity documents with
Bulgarian permanent addresses that will enable them to vote.

Election Day and Publishing Results



8. (U) There will be 11,428 polling stations across the country,
with 1,411 in Sofia alone. Polling stations open at 6 a.m. and
close at 7 p.m. Exit polls are allowed but results cannot be
announced before polling stations close. Preliminary results are
announced by the municipal electoral commission usually within
several hours of the polls' closing. Municipal electoral
commissions announce the final results for each municipality within
72 hours after the end of the vote.


9. (SBU) The CEC does not publish consolidated nationwide election
results for political parties because they could form different
coalitions in different municipalities. Many mayoral candidates are
backed by multi-party coalitions, or party candidates run as
independents to gain broader support. Thus, there are no unified
criteria to measure political parties' performance in the local
vote. The parties will choose criteria that portray results in the
most favorable light: the number of successful mayoral seats in the
264 municipalities; the number of counselors elected under the
proportional representation system; or the number of mayors in the
country's 27 regional centers. In past post-communist local
elections, rival parties claimed victory quoting these different
criteria. The local vote is thus often characterized as the
"election with many winners" as front-running parties use the
complex election mechanics to interpret the results. In this year's
vote, this may favor both the ruling Socialists who may retain their
dominance in small municipalities, and Sofia Mayor Borissov's party
which stands a good chance in the bigger cities, including Sofia.

BEYRLE