ASEN VASILEV GETS BANNED FROM BALLOT BOX

by Stamen Manolov

Asen Vasilev, the incumbent finance minister, may know everything about this country's coffers and how to spend the taxpayers' hard-earned cash, but he does not know how to proceed at the ballot box

asen vasilev local elections 2023.jpg

The man, who went to his native Haskovo, in southern Bulgaria, to vote in the local elections was turned away by the election authority because he failed to live up to the basic requirement of having had an address in his constituency for at least six months. The Haskovo commission announced the address they had for Vasilev dated back to 2000 and was in the United States.

The controversial Bulgarian Election Code allows Bulgarian citizens living abroad to cast their ballots in general elections regardless of their place of abode. In practice this means Bulgarians who have been in Chicago, London or Madrid for 25 years and have little knowledge of this country's day-to-day affairs and problems have equal voting rights with the people in Vratsa, Varna and Kyustendil, who have to struggle through the labyrinthine Bulgarian bureaucracy every day.

However, in local elections – in keeping with EU statutes – EU citizens who have lived in this country for over six months have voting rights on a par with Bulgarians (provided they have had a registered address here).

Asen Vasilev didn't, according to the Haskovo elections watchdog.

Obviously, the finance minister protested. He pointed out he had been elected as an MP in Haskovo. According to him, for the past six months the Haskovo elections authority had failed to establish that their local MP and finance minister had in actual fact lived in Bulgarian territory. A clear indication of the total mess this country's civil service is in, according to Vasilev.

Anyone who has had any dealing with the civil service locally or nationally can vouch for Asen Vasilev's perception. All state and local registers – from the real estate plans to the family relations and death books are full of mistakes, and, sadly, this is a fact of life that citizens, rather than the responsible agencies of the state, have the burden to prove and rectify.

However, following Asen Vasilev's failure to vote, an aftertaste remained in the mouths of many Bulgarians. If the finance minister does not know such a simple thing as to how to cast his ballot, how can we count on him to know what to do with our country's finances?

  • COMMENTING RULES

    Commenting on www.vagabond.bg

    Vagabond Media Ltd requires you to submit a valid email to comment on www.vagabond.bg to secure that you are not a bot or a spammer. Learn more on how the company manages your personal information on our Privacy Policy. By filling the comment form you declare that you will not use www.vagabond.bg for the purpose of violating the laws of the Republic of Bulgaria. When commenting on www.vagabond.bg please observe some simple rules. You must avoid sexually explicit language and racist, vulgar, religiously intolerant or obscene comments aiming to insult Vagabond Media Ltd, other companies, countries, nationalities, confessions or authors of postings and/or other comments. Do not post spam. Write in English. Unsolicited commercial messages, obscene postings and personal attacks will be removed without notice. The comments will be moderated and may take some time to appear on www.vagabond.bg.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.

Discover More

WHO IS AFRAID OF JOHN MALKOVICH?
Their demand: to disrupt the scheduled opening night of a play by the Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), directed by US actor John Malkovich.

98 PERCENT OF CITIZENS GET ALERTED... WITHOUT REALISING IT
"A success by all means," an advisor to the interior minister proclaimed, adding as many as 98 percent of smartphone owners in Bulgaria got a test message from the system.
TOO EARLY IN THE DAY TO TALK ABOUT FISTING
Former chairwoman of the BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party, Kornelia Ninova further stunned already flabbergasted Bulgarian audiences by pointing out "it was too early in the day" to talk about "unorthodox sexual practices" such as fisting.

GRANDEUR DISINTEGRATES
The new party, centred around a Disneyland-style theme park with strong "patriotic" connotations and located in northeastern Bulgaria, was represented by two men.

WOULD YOU BUY AN USED CAR FROM ANY OF THESE PEOPLE?
In an election campaign almost entirely dominated by finger-pointing and mudslinging the "genius" PRs of the CC-DB-DSB, or Changes Continued-Democratic Bulgaria-Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, seem to have gained the top ignominy for the worst

'SMART & BEAUTIFUL' PARKING WOES GRIP CENTRAL SOFIA
The advisors to Vasil Terziev, the mayor of Sofia, who are supposedly as "smart and beautiful" as the political parties that put him forward, must have swallowed that book several times over and mastered to perfection the craft of losing friends and alienat
NEED A CONSPIRACY THEORY?
Atanas Atanasov is a general. He was the head of the Bulgarian security service under Ivan Kostov, the Bulgarian prime minister in 1997-2001, who inimitably prompted just two reactions: love or hate.

SENIOR CLERIC GETS STATE FUNERAL
So what has a senior cleric, Patriarch Neofit, who died in March aged 78, done to deserve a state funeral replete with military salutes and a coffin being drawn by... an armoured personnel carrier?

ROTATING, ROTATING...
When it was hammered out last year with the support of Boyko Borisov's GERB (whom everyone left, right and centre of Kiril Petkov, Asen Vasilev, Hristo Ivanov and Gen Atanas Atanasov swore was the godfather of all evils to befall Bulgaria

GOING, GOING...
The cops by far outnumber the construction workers wielding chop saws inside a ladder hoist. There have been no press releases, nor the obligatory information signs to tell the public what's going on. The area has been cordoned off.

PRE-ELECTION TALK
"Hey, beauty, let's go home and have sex."" I can't do it just like that. We do not even have common acquaintances.""Well, do you know Boyko Borisov?""Yes, I do.""So, let's go!"***
LONG LIVE RED ARMY MONUMENT
Other angry citizens have taken to the park, where the MOCHA is situated.