“Early parliamentary elections 2014: Civil observation”

In accordance with the experience, gained during the implementation of 3 FEPS-ISI Monitoring Projects since 2011 and based on the feedback from our partnership organisations and media the civil society is fully aware that observation plays a key role for prevention of election violations. The main goal of the current project proposal is to support democratic, transparent and fair Early parliamentary elections; achieving preventive effect on the possibility of violating democracy during the elections and increasing citizens’ participation in the electoral process.  

The observation of the European elections 2014 showed that even after the enactment of the new Electoral code, the imperfections of the electoral process and the electoral campaign are getting deeper. The new Electoral code was adopted on 5 March 2014 and for application there were only two months left. Which requires continuation of the observation over how the instruments of fulfilling the new normative regulations are being implemented. The possible way to do this is by following the activity of the Central electoral commission, and by participating in its consulting organs – so as ISI is doing for the last years as a registered observer organisation, implementing activities under the FEPS-ISI Monitoring Agreement. After the elections the Project staff will prepare a new analysis and new propositions for amendments in the electoral legislation in partnership with other observers’ organisations. This outcome of the last Monitoring was high appreciated, but because of the short period the Parliament was working after the European elections, these propositions were not discussed.

Based on our experience from the monitoring of European elections 2014 and the two new components of observations that we introduced – analysis of regional media and monitoring of the platforms and the programs of the main political parties, we consider it extremely important to develop for the upcoming early elections exactly this last component. Under the conditions of a total apathy and passivity of Bulgarian voters, of emerging new formations in the electoral process, and at the same time – politically instable public institutions and public authorities, it is really important to observe and analyse the messages that are being sent to the voters in order to win their trust. For this purpose it is necessary to develop an Internet platform that assists the process making it as public and transparent as possible, so that it serves as a corrective in the electoral campaign. In order to access the messages sent out by the parties and coalitions for the elections campaign, we will apply again the method of media monitoring. In addition, we will examine also the political platforms of the candidates.