site.btaMRF Will Insist on OSCE, PACE Observation, If Surnitsa Practice Persists

MRF Will Insist on OSCE, PACE Observation, If Surnitsa Practice Persists

Sofia, March 20 (BTA) - The Movement for Rights and Freedoms
(MRF) and GERB exchanged Friday accusations of political
repressions in the new Surnitsa Municipality before the second
round of local elections there.

In a declaration on behalf of his party, MRF leader Lyutvi
Mestan warned that he will insist not for partial but for full
observation of the election process by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) at the local elections
in the autumn because of the risk of recurrence of the
"political pressure", which they alleged to have been exerted in
 Surnitsa by GERB.

Run-off election will be held in this municipality on Sunday as
neither the candidate of GERB nor the one of MRF garnered a
sufficient number of votes at the first round last week. The
third candidate, running on the ticket of the Reformist Bloc,
will back GERB during the second round.

According to Mestan, the candidates of the parties within the
ruling coalition have resorted to non-political means and brutal
 political pressure after their political arguments proved
insufficient. He said how the local mayors in the municipality
threatened temporary employed persons with dismissal unless they
 vote for the "right candidate".

GERB Deputy Floor Leader Tsveta Karayancheva reacted by
dismissing the accusations and saying that politicizing from the
 parliamentary rostrum aims to reap cheap political dividends.

According to Karayancheva, Mestan "missed" to say that "forest
workers would not sell wood to these who vote for GERB". This is
 the policy in the mixed regions: if MRF is not there, no
pensions and social benefits would be paid, she added.

"Now that there is a municipality, where fair elections could be
 held, we exchange empty words from the rostrum," she noted.