site.btaVazrazhdane Seeks Support to Challenge President's Decree on New Central Election Commission before Constitutional Court

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, following consultations with President Iliana Iotova regarding the new composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Vazrazhdane Deputy Floor Leader Peter Petrov said the party disagrees with the proposed mathematical model for the composition of the CEC, and "in accordance with our constitutional rights, we declare that we will seek support to gather the minimum number of signatures from MPs to challenge the President's decree on the composition of the CEC before the Constitutional Court". 

Vazrazhdane believes that a practice should be established that is not subject to varying interpretations, except when determining the composition of the central, regional, district and precinct election commissions, Petrov added.

Election expert and former CEC member Prof. Krasimir Kalinov said that in the President's decree, the calculation of the number of seats is mathematically incorrect. The method was applied factually, and an intermediate stage of seat redistribution was omitted because this is a so-called constrained optimization problem. In this situation, there is a difference of one seat, but that is no reason to overlook the inaccurate mathematical calculation, he added.