Bulgarian court orders recount of parliamentary election results amid voting discrepancies

Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ordered a full recount of the country's October 2024 parliamentary election results on Feb. 26 following an audit that discovered various voting discrepancies.

The court-issued recount puts at risk a slim six-seat majority for former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, the current leader of the coalition government.

Multiple parties contested the results of the vote at the local level after they were revealed, citing irregularities. Following a court-ordered audit, voting discrepancies were found in nearly half of the sampled polling stations.

Following the recount, adjustments to the total seat counts in Bulgaria's parliament may be made, the court said, potentially impacting the fragile government coalition.

The announcement of the recount comes amid a unstable last few years in the EU country, with a total of seven elections being held since 2021 — none of which have been able to produce a stable government.

Borissov, current head of the conservative-populist Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, resigned from his post in 2021 amid corruption allegations.

The recount in the Balkan country comes alongside news on Feb. 26 that Calin Georgescu, presidential candidate and right-wing populist in neighboring Romania, was charged by prosecutors for alleged crimes related to the country's recent elections.

Georgescu, a pro-Russian candidate, emerged as the frontrunner in Romania's presidential race in the first-round vote on Nov. 24. Romania's Constitutional Court annulled those results after reviewing evidence of "organized manipulation from abroad."

Bulgaria has provided Ukraine with a variety of aid since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, but the matter has been contentious due to significant pro-Russian sentiment in the country and opposition from President Rumen Radev.