Bulgaria's FinMin to Overseee Crucial Nuclear Referendum

Bulgaria's finance minister has been assigned the task to oversee the much debated national referendum on development of atomic energy, due on January 27, 2013.

Minister Simeon Djankov will coordinate the organizational and technical preparation preceding the referendum, will monitor the work of district governors and will have the right to punish them if they break the Election Code, the government's press office announced on Wednesday.

Minister Djankov is also obliged to prepare and submit for approval a draft bill about the expenses over holding the referendum, including the sums, which will be paid to the state TV channel and radio during the planned information campaign preceding the vote.

Last month, Minister Djankov said that the draft budget for next year has allocated up to BGN 30 M to cover the expenses involved in the referendum.

The vote in Bulgaria will be organized in the same manner as any election.

The voters will receive a white ballot with the question "Should atomic energy be developed in Bulgaria through the building of a new Atomic Plant?"

There will be an option to choose "yes" or "no" by using a blue ink pen.

Anyone who had Bulgarian citizenship by the date of the Presidential decree for the scheduling of the referendum; has a permanent address in Bulgaria; is over the age of 18, and is not in detention or serving an effective sentence is eligible to vote.

There will be voting polls for Bulgarians abroad, but only at Embassies and Consular Offices.

The referendum on atomic energy, excluding the local one on the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil line, is the first since the fall of the Communist regime in 1989.

Before that national referendums were held in 1922 – for the punishment of those responsible for the two national catastrophes; in 1946 – to change the rule of the country from monarchy to republic, and in 1971 for the so-called Zhivkov Constitution of Communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov.