OSCE to Monitor Bulgaria's Elections

The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, will monitor the October 23 local and presidential elections in Bulgaria.

ODHIR has opened in Sofia on Tuesday a Limited Mission for Election Assessment, Vadim Zhdanovich, Head of the OSCE/ODIHR Assessment Mission announced.

The invitation to OSCE has been extended by the Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The Mission includes 21 monitors from 15 OSCE countries. The main team, which will be based in Sofia, includes 11 experts. Another 10 long-term monitors are scheduled to arrive in Bulgaria by the end of the week and will be sent to different parts of the country.

The experts will visit a number of voting polls in Bulgaria on Election Day. The Mission will issue an interim report before the elections, while on October 24, it will hold a special press conference to deliver their official statement, preliminary conclusions and assessment.

The final report is to be published 8 weeks after the end of the election process.

"We fully realize that the upcoming presidential and local elections will be an important test for Bulgaria's commitment to hold democratic elections. Our role is to monitor and report, not to interfere. We are not interested in the results, but in having a transparent election process, aligned with OSCE standards – to have equal access to all; to be fair and unbiased," Zhdanovich says.

The news comes on the heals of information from Bulgarian expats about hurdles and refusals to open election polls abroad and an avalanche of reports from all over Bulgaria about mass violations of the Elections Code.

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