Bulgaria Cracks Down on Truant MPs

Bulgaria's MPs are notorious for their proclivity to vote on behalf of colleagues, who have decided to go after their private business instead of working in the plenary hall. Photo by BGNES

Members of Bulgarian parliament, who vote on behalf of colleagues that have decided to go after their private business instead of working in the plenary hall, will be sentenced to three years in jail.

This is envisaged in amendments to the Penal Code, proposed by Yane Yanev, leader of the conservative Law, Order, Justice (RZS) party, that parliament adopted at first reading on Wednesday in yet another attempt to cope with the job-skipping problem.

The new parliament, which held its first session at the beginning of July with the centre-right GERB party making up 116 MPs in the 240-seat unicameral national assembly, has vowed to put an end to the vicious practice.

Proposed amendments envisage that a daily check is done to ensure the presence of all the MPs and a list of those playing truant is pasted on the wall next to the parliament's entrance and posted online at parliament.bg.

The parliamentary leadership plans to invite in days a public procurement tender for an admission regime system, which will register the entrance into the building of each MP.

Ahmed Dogan, whose ethnic Turkish party, “Movement for Rights and Freedoms” (MRF), was part of the country's ruling coalition over the last eight years, has consistently been rated as the top nonattender.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!