site.btaLack of Quorum Cut Short Parliament's Sitting on Election Code Revisions

A lack of quorum cut short Thursday's sitting of Parliament that was expected to consider before a final vote key revisions to the Election Code.  The next sitting was scheduled for Friday morning. 

The opposition Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria, Vazrazhdane, the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms, MECh and Velichie did not register for the sitting leaving only MPs of GERB-UDF, MRF - New Beginning, five out of 19 MPs of BSP - United Left, There Is Such a People and four unaligned deputies.  

The proposed revisions would change the voting system and introduce ballot scanners to replace the voting machines.

Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) warned that as there will not be enough time to technically introduce the scanners, people will practically will be left only with the option of paper ballots at the upcoming snap parliamentary elections this spring. 

There Is Such a People reminded  CC-DB that they had proposed at an earlier stage introducing of ballot scanners. CC-DB said that the political situation was different then, that they did not see snap elections coming so soon and that they had since given up the idea.

Vazrazhdane argued that the revisions should not be put to a vote and if they are, the future acting President, Iliana Iotova, should veto them. The party leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, suggested that the parties in the outgoing cabinet are trying to rush the revisions through the legislature because the small ones - There Is Such a People and BSP - United Left, "rely on some manipulations to survive in the upcoming elections".