Bulgaria's Central Election Commission (CEK) now has the authority to register parties to take part in the elections in case it finds their leadership failed to meet more than two times, despite the established rules and schedule.

The amendment was passed by the Members of the Parliament late Monday evening during the second reading of the Election Code.

Earlier Monday, the MPs decided to work until midnight in order to pass all amendments, but the debates actually closed 20 minutes before that – at 11:40 pm with the decision to resume them Tuesday morning.

At 9 am Tuesday, the plenary hall did not have the necessary quorum since the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the opposition ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) MPs did not register, imposing the need to wait for all MPs from the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party and their closest ally – the far-right, nationalist "Ataka" party to gather for the session.

BSP MPs decided to take part in the Tuesday debates after all, but DPS declared they would not be present over their protest against keeping the permanent residency requirement in the Election Code – i.e. the mandate that the voter has a 12-month residency at a certain place in order to be allowed to participate in local elections.

With the ethnic Turkish MPs decision, the left-wing remained the only formation to argue against the GERB proposals. The Socialists did indeed counter some of the new rights of CEK, in addition to refusing registration – to schedule presidential elections, when a president has not been elected during the first round, or having some decisions not subject to appeal such as the way of work of local election commissions.

Another amendment to the Election Code, passed late Monday, is the requirement to hold elections on Sundays only. In the last few years, partial mayoral elections were held on Saturday. The arguments of Ataka, which submitted the proposal, was that people often travel on weekends and for this reason voters' turnout is lower on Saturdays.

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