Bulgaria’s caretaker government approves 100M leva draft budget for latest early parliamentary elections

Sofia: Meeting on August 30, Bulgaria’s caretaker government approved a draft budget of 100 028 000 leva for the country’s latest early parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 27 2024.

This means that by the time the October elections are over, the Bulgarian taxpayer will have spent about 615 million leva on national elections since the regular parliamentary elections in April 2021.

The October 27 early parliamentary elections will be the seventh time since April 2021 that Bulgarians elect a legislature. Of the previous six elections, only two produced a Parliament that elected a government, while the remaining four did not.

In the past three years, early parliamentary elections have twice been held along with other, regular, elections – the presidential elections in November 2021 and the European Parliament elections in June 2024.

Separately and in addition, other spending was 151 million leva on Bulgaria’s municipal and mayoral elections in October 2023, though those were scheduled regular elections.

The draft sum allocated by the caretaker government for the October 2024 elections includes various items such as preparation and printing of voters rolls, logistical support from regional, municipal and national administrations, voting abroad, security measures, training of electoral staff and video surveillance of the ballot-tallying process.

The caretaker cabinet said that it was ready to provide the necessary funds to the Central Electoral Commission when the commission concludes contracts for items such as logistics and technical support for machine voting.

The funds to pay for the conduct of the October elections will be provided by restructuring spending and transfers in the national Budget, the statement said.