Bulgarian MPs from parties participating in the ruling coalition or supporting it have proposed relaxing some of the restrictions for voters abroad which have been adopted with the latest amendments to the Electoral Code.
This development comes after parliament had recently adopted controversial amendments which restricted the right of Bulgarians abroad to vote.
The newly proposed amendments allow for up to 35 polling stations to be opened in each country outside Bulgaria.
Bulgarians living abroad will have to submit sixty requests in order for a polling station to be opened outside an embassy or consulate.
MPs had initially proposed to make it impossible to open polling stations outside embassies and consulates.
After popular discontent and protests of Bulgarians abroad, they relaxed somewhat the restrictions, allowing for polling stations to be opened outside diplomatic missions under certain conditions.
Representatives of organisations of Bulgarians abroad emerged from talks with Prime Minister Boiko Borissov on May 5, saying that they had his support for their objections to amendments recently approved by Parliament that would trim back polling stations outside the country.
Bulgarians abroad, through organisations and on social networks, have petitioned President Rossen Plevneliev to veto the changes, approved by the National Assembly in more than one round of rewrites attended by considerable controversy.
According to participants in the meeting, Borissov had agreed that the latest changes to the Electoral Code would take away the rights of Bulgarians abroad and had supported their request for a return to the previous election rules.
Stefan Manov, a representative of the interim public council of Bulgarians abroad, told reporters, we want restoration of the existing rules for opening polling stations outside the country and insist on the creation of an abroad constituency.
Another representative of Bulgarians abroad, Sylvia Lozeva from Perth, Australia, said that like other Bulgarian expatriates, she believed that the rights of Bulgarians as a nation should not become a political football.
In an exclusive interview for the Bulgarian program on SBS radio, Sylvia Lozeva, says that under the initial amendment to the Electoral Code she would have to travel 4,000 km. to cast her vote.
