site.btaOpposition Socialists Urge GERB to Withdraw Election Code Amendments

116 POLITICS - OPPOSITION PARTY - ELECTION CODE

Opposition Socialists Urge
GERB to Withdraw
Election Code Amendments


Sofia, February 5 (BTA) - Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Kornelia Ninova accused GERB of trying to establish dictatorship in Bulgaria by submitting "last-minute and surreptitiously" amendments to the Election Code of the "one party, one state" sort.

According to one of the amendments, moved by GERB MP Anna Alexandrova, a decision of an election commission which is revoked on appeal would be replaced by a decision adopted by a simple majority. Under the current version of the code, constituency election commission decisions require a majority of two-thirds. The BSP sees this revision as a way of suppressing the opinion of other parties' representatives in the commissions.

In case election results are disputed, new elections will not be held but the same election commission will adopt a new decision on the results, Alexandrova's bill proposes. It also moves for a repeal of the appealability of an election commission decision by a cassation appeal before the Supreme Administrative Court, the opposition pointed out.

At a news conference at the BSP headquarters on Tuesday, Ninova called on voters to resist "the creeping dictatorship" and said that the BSP insists on a withdrawal of the amendments.

BSP for Bulgaria Deputy Floor Leader Kroum Zarkov said that the Election Code would best not be amended before the May 26 European elections. Some of the amendments were approved at first reading, but the bill and the additionally introduced amendments were not considered and approved at second reading even by the Legal Affairs Committee in charge.

On Wednesday, BSP for Bulgaria will table a draft resolution of the National Assembly on the initiation of a procedure for the election of a new complement of the Central Election Commission whose term of office is running out. ZH/TH

/TH/