Bulgarians in the Czech Republic vote in only three polling stations in Prague

For these elections alone, more than 1,000 preiminary applications for voting were submitted to the Central Election Commission by Bulgarians living in different cities across the Czech Republic. Despite this, once again - as in the previous elections - only three polling stations have been opened for the entire country, all located at the Bulgarian Embassy in Prague.

A personal survey by a Bulgarian living in the Czech Republic shows that there is interest in the elections, but no agreement has been concluded with the Czech authorities to organize more polling stations outside the diplomatic mission in Prague. She considers this a shortcoming on the part of the embassy, although there is experience in organizing elections locally from previous years, when Bulgarians had polling stations in seven different locations across the country:

“In two polling stations voting was done with paper ballots, and one had machine voting,” Irina Angelova from the city of Mladá Boleslav in the Czech Republic told us.

“Those of us who had registered on the CEC’s platform for voting abroad were listed in large registers. The big surprise was that many people came and filled out their applications on the spot. I also met groups of tourists - ten groups from Bulgaria came and voted in Prague. One group consisted of 43 people, a dance ensemble that had come to perform in Prague. Individual Bulgarians also came from various cities. One man shared that he greatly regretted there was no polling station in Brno, which forced him to travel to Prague. The same was said by a woman living near the Polish border, where many Bulgarians reside. At 7:30 a.m., in the polling station where I voted, there were already about 30 people. When I later spoke with the consul, he told me that more than 400 people had voted, and in the afternoon people were arriving in crowds. So there was high voter turnout, higher than a year ago. Staff at the polling stations said they were managing the influx. Down the stairs, I also saw long queues at all three polling stations in Prague.”

Our compatriot emphasizes that in 2021 and 2022 voting there took place in seven polling stations distributed across different towns in the country. In her city alone - Mladá Boleslav - around 2,000 Bulgarians currently live.

However, in the Czech Republic over all these years, no more than 2,500 people have voted. “The problem is that we do not have enough leaders and volunteers to organize election day,” says Irina Angelova, and continues:

“Things could have been organized, but people got used to the excuse that the Czech authorities do not allow elections to be organized in the country. That is simply not true. The Czech Republic has had no objection, but nothing was done to conclude an agreement with the Bulgarian Election Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We have been living in a big misconception, and that is extremely unpleasant. But today we witnessed many people who wanted to vote in the Czech Republic. We haven’t had so many voters since the first vote during the coronavirus period. Everyone was very cheerful, positive, and eager to vote.”

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Edited by E. Karkalanova