Regarding the text in the transitional and conclusive provisions of the draft bill for Election Code published on the National Assembly website on 17 October 2013 and submitted for opinion to the Venice Commission, paragraph 12 which goes as follows:

“Par. 12 When elections are held for MEPs from the Republic of Bulgaria in 2014 along with elections for President and Vice President and elections for MPs, the regions for organisational and technical preparation of the elections for MEPs from the Republic of Bulgaria and those for elections for President and Vice President coincide with the electoral districts for elections for MPs”.

The Press Secretariat is authorized to disseminate the following statement made by the Head of State:

“The draft bill for Election Code, submitted for opinion to the Venice Commission, once again made some of the worst flaws of the Bulgarian political system the topic of the day. For yet another time a draft, which in the power holders’ words has been prepared in the most public and transparent way and with the participation of the civil society, practically contains texts for which no one can explain the motives, nor who has included them in the draft bill.

For yet another time the ideas and plans of secret laboratories for political engineering have found their way in a draft bill. What raises even greater concern is that in public and without any worries the civil society is shown that last autumn, when the Bulgarian citizens took to the streets and called on for morality in politics, someone, somewhere in the dark made cloak-and-dagger arrangements.  Furthermore submitting this draft bill to the Venice Commission with the explicit stipulation in it that presidential elections are also planned for 2014, is basically an attempt to seek international legitimacy of this plan.

What raises even greater concern are the number of coincidences that supplement the content of the respective paragraph 12 of the Election Code and in which, unfortunately not only political forces and media oligarchs, but also state institutions are involved.

I call on all democratically-minded Bulgarian to join me in opposing the cloak-and-dagger scenarios.”