is headed by an executive
committee consisting of a chairman, a deputy chairman, a secretary, and
twenty members, all of whom must be approved by the State Council.

Corollary to the right to elect is the right to be elected to public
office. Candidates are nominated according to electoral areas.
Theoretically, the right to nominate candidates is secured through
meetings of public organizations and such societies as trade unions,
youth organizations, cultural societies, and cooperatives. In practice,
however, candidates are nominated by the BKP leadership of these public
organizations, and their names are submitted for discussion during
meetings. This procedure ensures the candidates' election and at the
same time meets the obligation in the electoral law that nominations be
discussed at public meetings.

Lists of candidates for public office are compiled in each village,
town, and district and are submitted to the BKP-controlled National
Council of the Fatherland Front where a final list of candidates is
drawn. Only candidates nominated by the BKP, the Bulgarian Agrarian
Union, and other mass social organizations approved by the Fatherland
Front are allowed to go on the ballot. Quite expectedly, the single
slate of candidates presented by the Fatherland Front usually gets
elected unanimously.

In the parliamentary election held on June 27, 1971, voters elected
assembly deputies, people's councillors, judges, and lay assessors. Out
of 6,168,931 registered voters, 6,159,942 cast ballots, representing
99.85 percent of the electorate. A total of 6,154,082 voters, or 99.9
percent, voted for all Fatherland Front candidates as contrasted to
1,487 who voted against. About 4,373 election ballots were declared void
because of irregularities.

The speed with which election results are tallied and announced was
exemplified by the election of 1971. Two days after the election the
Central Election Commission--headed by its chairman, Angel
Velev--examined the protocols of the 400 urban constituency election
commissions and announced the results. As expected, all 400 candidates
nominated by the Fatherland Front were elected. Announcements of local
election results in towns and villages are made by the respective
executive committees of the people's councils.

The BKP's method of organizing the government after an election was
illustrated by the plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party's Central
Committee held on July 6, 1971. It