Presidential election: Bulgaria's parliament to pause from 21 to 30 October
MPs voted themselves a ten-day break for the campaign ahead of the presidential election on 25 October. Only GERB-SDS voted against.
Archive image · Photo: Hakuna.Matata / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
The National Assembly and its committees will hold no regular sittings from 21 to 30 October inclusive. The break was justified by the campaign and the presidential election on 25 October. The motion was tabled by Petar Vitanov of Progressive Bulgaria and other MPs; Speaker Mihaela Dotsova added it to the agenda after a discussion in the presiding council.
The break was backed by 132 MPs from Progressive Bulgaria, three from the DPS and Democratic Bulgaria. The 21 GERB-SDS MPs present voted against, and one DPS member abstained. We Continue the Change and Vazrazhdane did not take part in the vote. Parliament can still convene in extraordinary session during the break if needed. The break thus begins four days before polling day and ends five days after it.