Bulgarian MPs Resume Work with 'Election' Clashes

Iskra Fidosova, MP from the ruling GERB and Chair of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, firmly rejects claims of the opposition that the Interior Ministry had violated election rules and the vote has been manipulated. Photo by BGNES

After an 18-day break, the Members of the Parliament resumed work with clashes and mutual accusations of manipulations and violations of the October 23 presidential and local elections.

Iskra Fidosova, MP from the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party (GERB) and Chair of the Parliamentary Legal Committee, firmly rejected claims of the opposition that the Interior Ministry had violated election rules.

Fidosova spoke after the opposition ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, voiced demands to establish an inquiry commission to probe illegal activities committed by police employees.

The GERB MP admitted there were mistakes in lists generated by the Main Directorate Civil Registration and Administrative Services, GRAO, but said they date from 2007, while discrepancies between GRAO and Interior Ministry's lists involved "only" 12 000 Bulgarians.

She stressed that all electoral commissions include representatives of the opposition left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and of DPS, accusing them of whining because they lost the elections.

Fidosova also pointed out that for the first time in many years two votes were held on the same day, which created difficulties, adding, however, the rules were well explained and included in her brainchild – the new Election Code, which received approval from a "number of local and international organizations."

She also discounted claims of the opposition that the election process and the counting of the ballots have been manipulated, triggering loud reaction of outrage from DPS and BSP MPs.

DPS MP and DPS Deputy Chair, Lyutvi Mestan, insisted that the executive power had committed crimes punishable by up to 3 years of jail time, and warned these cases will be filed with the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.

Maya Manolova, from BSP, labeled the elections "the worse organized" in modern history and a failure, marked by incompetence, vote buying and police brutality.

The leader of the far-right, nationalist Ataka party, Volen Siderov, who was unsuccessful in his presidential bid, appealed to all parliamentary groups believing there were violations and forging of results, along with people from NGOs, the media and international organizations to organize themselves and do a manual recount of the ballots. He showed pictures of torn bags and ballots strewn all over as proof of violations.

The leader of the right-wing Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and co-Chair of the Blue Coalition, Martin Dimitrov, joined the claims of violations and manipulations and demanded to have an appeal of the decisions of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

Meanwhile, CEC is yet to announce the official results from the counting of the ballots from the presidential vote and the one for Mayor of Sofia, in violation of the law, which requires a 48-hour deadline after the end of Election Day. The deadline expired Tuesday evening.

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