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Bulgarian Parties Trade Accusations Over Ballots

Views on BG | May 12, 2013, Sunday // 08:22

by Sean Carney

The Wall Street Journal

Bulgarian politicians traded accusations Saturday after authorities here seized hundreds of thousands of allegedly illegally printed ballots on the eve of a hotly contested parliamentary election in the European Union's poorest member.

The country's electoral commission said all legitimate ballots are in place and under seal at polling stations around the country, and that voting can go ahead as scheduled Sunday, but some parties were already questioning whether the results were open to manipulation.

Mass protests against government austerity measures, energy prices and poverty drove Bulgaria's previous government from office in February, and popular disillusionment with the political elite has already been running high in the run-up to the polls.

The leader of the country's Socialist Party, Sergei Stanishev on Saturday said the confiscated ballots were part of an attempted election fraud by the rival, right-leaning party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov—a charge the party denied.

Mr. Stanishev and leaders of other smaller parties called for the elections to be postponed.

Bulgaria's security service seized about 350,000 of the questionable ballots from the premises of Multiprint, the company commissioned by the government to print the official election ballots, prosecutors said.

Multiprint officials said the confiscated ballots were defects from the printing process.

Mr. Borisov's party, the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, or GERB, said in an email to The Wall Street Journal that it had no connection to the illegitimate ballots, which it said the Socialists were using in attempt to discredit the conservatives.

The Socialists "know they will lose the election. This scenario is their insurance and pre-justification for the huge loss they will undergo," GERB said.

Recent public-opinion surveys show the Socialists and GERB running neck-and-neck, with neither party likely to win enough legislative seats to govern on its own, setting the stage for further uncertainty as politicians try to form a stable ruling coalition.

Mr. Borisov's party has seen its popularity hit by allegations of corruption as well as by a wire-tapping scandal involving allies of the ex-premier.

The party and Mr. Borisov's allies deny the accusations.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, has sent more than 200 observers to monitor the vote, its largest monitoring mission to Bulgaria since 1990.

Roberto Montella, an OSCE spokesman in Sofia, said the organization is aware of the developments, which will be included in its assessment of the fairness of the election, which will be released on Monday.

The Council of Europe, a European rule-of-law watchdog, also has sent a 19-member team to monitor the votes and Andreas Gross, head of that delegation, said it is very carefully following developments and may make comments early Sunday.

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Tags: election, ballots, Bulgaria, GERB, Bulgarian Socialist Party, Elections 2013

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