This analysis assesses the results of the monitoring conducted on the pre-election programmes of the political parties, registered for the 44^th National Assembly elections in Bulgaria. The monitoring is part of the efforts of Transparency International-Bulgaria to focus the attention of political parties on the major deficits in the political life and governance practices.

These deficits deepen the backsliding of Bulgaria in the efforts for prevention and counteraction to corruption and need substantial corrections in light of the registered low levels of trust and tolerance of Bulgarian citizens. In the eve of the snap parliamentary elections on 26 March 2017 Transparency International-Bulgaria has published a policy paper “17 Anticorruption Commitments for Elections 2017” and has called to political parties to present concrete measures which can be the basis for a civil society monitoring for their implementation. The monitoring is based on a methodology, which includes taking two key indicators into account:

• Level of commitment by political parties with specific measures in key areas of the policy for prevention and counteraction to corruption, formulated by TI-Bulgaria in the eve of the election campaign: http://transparency.bg/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/On-26-March-2017-parliament-elections-will-take-place-in-Bulgaria.pdf
• Level of integration in the pre-election campaigns of the political parties of other measures with the potential to limit the corruption risk and to effectively prosecute corruption crimes;

The monitoring included a number of key steps:

•  Establishing a contact with all political parties, registered to participate in the elections for the 44^th National Assembly. The official contact address, registered with the Central Election Commission was used. The aim of the contact was to provide publicity of the initiative and to request the current pre-election programme of the parties.
• A content analysis of all publicly accessible programmes of the registered parties in the period 17 February – 10 March 2017.

You could read more about the Analysis Here.