The ethnic Turkish ally in Bulgaria's ruling coalition became the second party to register for the European Parliament vote albeit handing in its papers with a slight delay.

Dozens of journalists waited in vain at the Central Election Commission in Sofia on Thursday, as the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) didn't submit the papers for the MEP elections in time.

Instead of handing in their papers between 10:00 and 10:30 in the morning as they had themselves announced, the party said they weren't ready, SNA reporters said.

Early in the afternoon representatives of the party submitted a list of over 20,000 signatures. The morning commotion, they explained, was caused by a delay in sending some five hundred signatures from the town of Sliven.

Rossen Vladimirov, deputy head of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, claimed it was a pure coincidence that the party registered on the day when its leader celebrates its birthday.

Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov's center-rightist GERB formation was the first party to register for the first elections for European parliamentarians.

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