Election monitoring

On May 3, 2012 the Institute for Social Integration (ISI), represented by the Executive Director Galina Assenova, participated in the forum "Platform for Fair Elections 2013". Initiators of the event were Labour Confederation “Podkrepa”, European Society for Human Rights - Bulgaria and Political Party “The Other Bulgaria” /Drugata Bulgaria/.

The discussion was the first event of a number of meetings, aiming at gathering ideas and experiences from different organizations, united around the cause for democratic and fair elections; its focus - the upcoming parliamentary elections in 2013. The main topic of the Forum was the election law. The forum was attended by a number of NGOs, experts and lawyers.

"Platform for Fair Elections 2013" is open to civic and professional organizations, experts and citizens, academic institutions, political parties and movements - for making recommendations to the legislative bodies in order to ensure an election process in line with the European and international standards and best practices in elections.

The starting point in this discussion were the equal civil rights, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, the European values ​​and the commitments under the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, the documents of the annual conferences of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe /OSCE/ on human dimension, the  guidelines for elections of the European Commission for democracy through law (known as the Venice Commission), as well as the international standards and best practices for carrying out elections.

The next meeting will be held on May 30, 2013, where important aspects of the electoral process will be discussed. ISI will take part in it, using its expertise and experience gained as a result of implementing the project "Monitoring for democratic, transparent and fair elections" in the second half of 2012.