site.btaMPs Fail to Adopt Agenda for National Assembly's Work in the Two Days Before Easter, Plenary Session Is Closed

Sofia, April 28 (BTA) - National Assembly Deputy Chair Christian Vigenin opened and closed the plenary sitting on Wednesday after MPs failed to adopt an agenda for the two plenary sittings before Easter. The proposed agenda was first rejected by a vote of 86 in favour, 8 against, with 103 abstentions, and in the re-vote, the agenda was rejected by 79 votes in favour and 6 against, with 123 abstentions.

Vigenin commented that this is the first time this has happened in the National Assembly, after which he closed the sitting and called a meeting of Parliament's leadership. He explained that the National Assembly Chair can call a new sitting at any time.

The draft agenda included the second reading of revisions to the Election Code. Representatives of the VMRO party are holding a protest against the changes near the National Assembly building.

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The new parliamentary parties, Rise Up! Thugs Out! (RUTO), There Is Such a a People (TISP) and Democratic Bulgaria blamed GERB-UDF, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) for the failed sitting.

Arman Babikian MP of RUTO said: "This is the new majority which could probably fulfil a third cabinet-forming mandate if it keeps voting so heroically."

Hristo Ivanov MP of Democratic Bulgaria commented that GERB, the BSP and the MRF thwarted the sitting because the revisions to the electoral legislation are on it. "There is an obvious consensus against the Election Code amendments and the introduction of 100 per cent machine voting," he said.

Asked what they will do about the situation in which Parliament's hands are tied, Stanislav Balabanov MP of TISP said that new elections will be held if necessary.

Talking to reporters, BSP Floor Leader Kornelia Ninova said her party had not backed the agenda because it did not feature the social and economic measures on which the Socialists set a priority.

Toma Bikov MP of GERB said that if this Parliament is to have a real agenda, it should first elect a cabinet. Since the Left insists on social and economic measures, including a budget update, there must be a cabinet to implement them. "Item One on the agenda is the election of a Council of Ministers," he said, commenting on the failed sitting.

GERB Floor Leader Desislava Atanasova said there should be enough time between the two readings of the Election Code revisions so that the parliamentary groups can elaborate their positions. The report of the Legal Affairs Committee contains mutually exclusive proposals which are both technically and legally unfeasible, she explained. RY/DT,DD