Following a row within the ruling party and hot debates, Bulgaria's Parliament passed the new Electoral Code at first reading.
Out of 175 MPs that cast their vote, 160 backed the code, one voted no and fourteen abstained.
A large group of the ruling party's MPs who are against the bill left the hall during the debates and did not take part in the ballot. The draft of the new code was tabled by MP Emil Koshlukov from the incumbent majority who was said to have had a loud quarrel with a group from his own party late on Wednesday.
His vision combines proportional representation with a majority electoral system. The code passed on Wednesday constitutes that half of Bulgaria's lawmakers should be elected according to the majority system while the rest will represent proportionally the different parties. Thus the voters need to cast two voting-papers.
Another provision in the emerging code would turn permanent the Central Election Commission. Its members will be elected in equal quotas by the Parliament, the president and the Supreme Cassation Court and replaced every three years.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.