site.btaCentral Election Commission Decides to Accept Applications for Participation in Elections from Both Warring Factions in MRF

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has decided Monday to accept the papers for participation in the October 27 snap parliamentary elections from both warring factions in the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the one behind Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan and the other behind floor leader Delyan Peevski. The decision was made at an extraordinary CEC meeting that was live-streamed on its website.

The decision was made in a 8-3 vote. CEC specified that both applications will be registered with the same time and won't be assigned a registration number. 

The registration of parties and coalitions for the elections was delayed by over seven hours on Monday as representatives of the two MRF factions tried to race each other to the CEC to be the first to register, effectively blocking the process. There was a proposal for CEC to ask Parliament Chair Raya Nazaryan to secure a different space for the registration because "the situation was not normal" where they were. The proposal was voted down in a 5-6 vote.