Bulgaria: Bulgaria: Bulgaria’s Electoral Body Vows to Welcome OSCE Observers | Novinite.com

Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has made it clear it would welcome observers for the presidential and local elections on October 23, 2011, if the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe decides to send any. “We are not afraid of being observed,” one of the CEC spokespersons, Biser Troyanov, stated Wednesday.

The CEC statement came in response of concerns raised Tuesday by the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) whose Deputy Chair Lyutvi Mestan complained that the ruling center-right party GERB, the nationalist party Ataka and the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party had been cooperating in order to eliminate DPS representatives from key positions in the municipal electoral commissions around the country. That is why, the DPS party demanded observers from the OSCE.

Bulgaria: 84 Parties Bid in Bulgaria’s 2011 Local Elections, 10 in Presidential Vote | Novinite.com

A total of 84 political formations have submitted registration papers for Bulgaria’s 2011 local elections scheduled to take place on October 23, 2011, together with the presidential vote. The deadline for applications for registrations with Bulgaria’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) expired Monday at 5 pm.

Ralitsa Negentsova, spokesperson of the CEC, reminded that a total of 88 parties and coalitions registered for the local elections in 2007. While Bulgaria has 6 major parties that are represented in Parliament, and a couple that failed to make it to it, the local elections traditionally feature a wide array of marginal and local parties.