Bulgarian Parties Snap Election Sign-Up Starts March 19

Parties and coalitions, willing to join the race during Bulgaria's snap general election in May, can start submitting documents for registration with the electoral body on Tuesday, March 19.

Parties have up to March 27 to collect 7 000 signatures and a deposit of BGN 10 000 which they will get back if they overcome a threshold of 0.1% from the entire vote.

The Central Electoral Commission, CEC, will begin accepting documents at 9 am on March 19. The closing time is 5 pm. The deadline for registration expires at 6 pm on March 27.

The deadline for registering coalitions or changing their membership is 5 pm on April 1.

The deadline for changing a coalition by removing a party from it is 5 pm on April 6.

This time around, members of the youth unit of the party of outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) will be again on duty at the entrance of the CEC building in downtown Sofia to make sure their political formation registers first.

The first shift already started at 7 am Friday. The guards will change every 7 hours.

On February 21, Bulgaria's Parliament approved the resignation of Borisov's GERB government amidst unprecedented since 1997 protest rallies against sky-high utility bills, monopolies, stagnation, corruption and wide-spread poverty, which later turned into a civil unrest and political demands.

Snap general election is to be held May 12, just two months ahead of the regular date in July.

President, Rosen Plevneliev, named the caretaker government on March 12.