Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Bulgaria this week to protest amid allegations of vote-buying at the country’s parliamentary election.
Bulgarians went to the polls on Oct. 27 in an attempt to break a years-long political deadlock. The Interior Ministry said on Oct. 25 that it had received more than 400 reports of vote-buying, while earlier this month, a group of hacktivists published a list of 200 names of people it said were buying votes for a new party launched by sanctioned oligarch Delyan Peevski.
Peevski’s party, DPS A New Beginning, ended up coming in fourth in the election with 280,000 votes, or about 11 percent of the ballots, winning in districts where there were notable voting irregularities.
Demonstrators, some holding a banner declaring “WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE BOUGHT ELECTIONS,” gathered outside the presidency building in downtown Sofia on Tuesday and Wednesday evening to demand a new election. Others set fire to a fake ballot box emblazoned with Peevski’s name. The protesters pledged to gather again on Thursday.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev on Thursday called for an investigation into the allegations, which he described as “ugly practices.”
“Bulgarian citizens have the right to know in whose interest their institutions are working and whether someone is infiltrating the National Assembly through vote-buying, threats and racketeering,” Radev said.
“There can be neither bought nor forced democracy. If we accept this as normal, it means that we have given up the very idea of people’s rule,” he said.
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