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DE RUEHSF #1176/01 2710723
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FM AMEMBASSY SOFIA
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INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SOFIA 001176 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV BU
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 
 
SOFIA 00001176  002 OF 002 
 
 
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