President Georgi Purvanov has returned amendments to the Elections Act  to Parliament, saying that he disagreed with the new threshold of eight per cent that political coalitions would have to pass in Bulgaria's parliamentary elections to be held in less than three months.

"Two weeks ago, the President expressed his position on the planned changes, and imposing a veto on the amendments is part of his policy of transparency and continuity," a statement on the presidency website said on April 15 2009.

On April 13 2009, after long debate, two ruling coalition parties - the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Right and Freedoms (MRF) - supported by two opposition parties - the Order, Law and Justice (OLJ) party and ultra-nationalist Ataka party - supported the amendments to the Election Act which raised the threshold for political coalitions from the current four per cent to eight per cent.

For political parties, the threshold remained four per cent and, according to Purvanov, this has proven in the past 18 years to have a positive effect. "The President warns that the increased threshold for political coalitions poses a danger to political pluralism and narrows the list of the political forces in Parliament, which could lead to Parliament's instability".

The amendment was severely criticised by the opposition and many political analysts. They said that it was the ruling parties' way to change the rules of the political game at the last possible moment in an attempt to hang on to power after the elections.

BSP leader and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev's reaction so far has been that the amendment was tabled by OJL and not the BSP.

Indeed, the amendment was tabled by OLJ and its leader Yane Yanev, to the surprise of other opposition parties. For almost three weeks, there had been talk that such an amendment would be introduced, with both the BSP and the MRF expressing their support for it, but it was OLJ that tabled the amendment in Parliament.

The increased threshold was the only thing with which Purvanov found fault in the series of amendments to the Election Act. The statement on the website said that the amendment specifying that 31 out of 240 MPs will be elected by majority vote was a "compromise" but "a step in the right direction". Purvanov has been pushing for 58 MPs to be elected by majority vote.

Now it is up to the two ruling parties to decide whether they will heed Purvanov's reasoning or go ahead and confirm the amendments anyway.

According to article 101 of the Bulgarian constitution, a law returned by the President to the National Assembly for further debate requires a majority of more than half of all MPs to be approved. Following a new passage of the bill by the National Assembly, the President shall promulgate it within seven days following its receipt.