The government of Boyko Borisov fell on Feb. 20, 2013 after a month of incessant protests, and in less than five days, on May 12, Bulgarian citizens will elect a new parliament (an in-depth GV text is here).
There are doubts, however, about the fairness of the upcoming vote. To help monitor the violations of the electoral process, Bulgarian activists have created several online tools.
- Аз Гласувам [“I Vote”; bg] was created by Institute for Public Environment Development (IPED), a nonprofit organization supporting political and social change in Bulgaria. IPED works to increase citizen participation in the Bulgarian government, limiting the influence of the mafia in politics, securing a fair electoral process, and combating corruption and abuse of power. The platform's goal is to promote the rights of voters in Bulgaria, to answer most frequently asked questions about the upcoming election, to assist in reporting violations of the electoral process, and to aggregate election news published in the media.
- За честни избори (“For Fair Elections”; bg] is an Ushahidi-based crowdmapping platform, which will help gather reports of violations (text and photos submitted via Facebook, Twitter and email).
- Public Campaign Against Buying and Controlling the Vote is a site that collects news, updates and advice on how to combat vote-buying and other violations.
On Twitter, netizens can report violations and post updates using these hashtags: #bgizbori2013, #izbori2013, and #izbori (izbori means ‘elections’ in Bulgarian).