TISP Leader Trifonov proposes referendum on Presidential republic

TV show host-turned-politician and There Is Such a People (TISP) party leader Slavi Trifonov proposed a national referendum, in which the people can express their opinion on whether Bulgaria should become a presidential republic. He unveiled his initiative Friday on his own 7/8 TV and in a Facebook post.

The effective Constitution of 1991 defines Bulgaria as "a republic with a parliamentary system of government", and this form of government can only be changed if the Constitution is amended or a new one is adopted by a Grand National Assembly. To be approved, such a motion would require a two-thirds majority in the 400-member legislature, or 267 votes. Most legal experts agree that this matter cannot be decided by a referendum.

Trifonov said he had seen the political system from within and it is full of hypocrisy, lies, corruption, intrigues and thirst for power. "That's what I saw, and that's why I don't believe myself to be a politician," he said, adding that in addition to the GERB governance model, the whole current political system in Bulgaria must be dismantled. "That's why we want you to say whether it's time for Bulgaria to become a presidential republic or it should remain a parliamentary republic. We would like to ask you this in a national referendum".

According to Trifonov, it is up to the people to decide this and his party will guarantee in the next parliament that their decision is acted on, regardless of what it is.

Back in 2016, while Trifonov was still a TV show host and before TISP was established, his team initiated a referendum about the election of members of parliament by an absolute majority in a two-round majoritarian system; compulsory voting in elections and referendums; and reducing the annual state subsidy for political parties and coalitions from BGN 11 to BGN 1 per valid vote received at the last parliamentary elections. A total of 572,650 valid signatures were collected in support of the initiative.

The referendum was held simultaneously with presidential elections on November 6, 2016. The majority of Bulgarians were in favour of the proposed changes, but the results fell some 12,000 votes short of the minimum number that would have obliged Parliament to enact the proposals. The envelopes found in the ballot boxes counted at the referendum totalled 3,488,558, whereas at least 3,500,585 (the number of voters who cast ballots at the parliamentary elections in 2014) were needed to make the results mandatory.

Three of the six questions proposed for the referendum had to be dropped after the Constitutional Court determined that they were unconstitutional: halving the number of MPs, allowing remote electronic voting in elections and referendums, and electing local police chiefs by popular vote.

Trifonov's TISP was the second biggest political force in the short-lived 45th National Assembly in 2021 and won the most seats in the 46th National Assembly later the same year but slumped to the fifth position in the 47th National Assembly. Pollsters expect them to perform close to or below the 4% threshold for the allocation of seats in the October 2, 2022 snap parliamentary elections.