Presidential and Local Elections Monitoring 2011

“THE EFFECTIVE CIVIL SOCIETY CONTROL AS A FACTOR FOR INCREASING INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY OF THE POLITICAL AND ELECTORAL PROCESS” project is an initiative of TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL – Bulgaria. It has been implemented since the end of June 2011 with the financial support of AMERICA FOR BULGARIA Foundation (ABF). The primary goal of the project is to promote integrity of the electoral process by mobilizing the efforts of civil society in carrying out of effective control over the forthcoming election campaigns in view of three major directions:

• Transparency and accountability of the election campaign financing;

• Integrity and transparency of the election process within the election day time-frame;

• Prevention of practices of election vote purchases.

The initiative is being implemented in three basic directions of activity:

1. Summoning civil society and expert community capabilities for observation according to new election legislation decrees – sociological and legal research and analyses presenting the basis for development of a monitoring methodology of the election process;

2. Conducting extensive advocacy campaign, including creating a civil coalition for monitoring of the electoral process, conducting of a media campaign in support of the concepts for transparency and integrity of the election process and a regular submission of information about the results from the initiative;

3. Election process monitoring with a focus on two main components: monitoring of the financing of the election campaigns and monitoring of the electoral process on Election Day.

On 19 September 2011 TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL-Bulgaria initiated the signing of a Contract for Integrity and Transparency at financing and implementation of the election process – 2011.

 Mobilization of the expertise of civil society actors and experts in order to elaborate a new methodology for monitoring of the forthcoming elections (adequate to the requirements of new Election Code);

• Mobilization of NGOs and media to exercise effective civil society control over the forthcoming Local elections – 2011 and Presidential elections – 2011; 

• Increasing the level of public awareness towards the problems associated with corruption of the electoral process, non-transparent election campaign financing, promoting the public intolerance towards buying of electoral votes.

• Interaction between civil society structures and state institutions for implementing effective control over the electoral process.

As a result of implementing the initiative, TI-Bulgaria prepared an Index for Transparency of  2011 Presidential Elections and an Index for Transparency of 2011 Local Elections.