Electoral fraud

More than two-fifth of Turks have claimed their votes are not swayed by allegations of corruption directed towards political parties, a survey conducted by Transparency International Turkey has shown, underscoring that awareness of corruption cases which directly affect personal finances is not present for political corruption allegations in determining voting behavior.

Members of the State Election Commission, DIK, say the many inconsistencies in the electoral roll spotted by individuals, the media and political parties since the launch of an app last week will be dealt with before the June 5 early elections.

Bedredin Ibrahimi, a member of the DIK, says there is no cause for panic about the timeframe.

A new survey has shown that positive assessment of the performance of Bulgaria's coalition government has shed four percentage points since the end of last year, reaching 20% at the beginning of March, BGNES reported on Monday.

A bill prepared by Bulgarian MPs proposes the imposition of BGN 50 fine for people not voting in elections and depriving them of social benefits for a period of three months.

The bill has been devised and adopted at first reading at the proposal of one of the parties supporting the ruling coalition - the Patriotic Front (PF).

Nearly two-thirds of Bulgarians approve of the proposed merging of the country's existing anti-graft state agencies into a single body dedicated to fighting corruption, a new survey conducted by Gallup International has shown.

At its regular meeting on Wednesday, the Bulgarian government discussed the edited version of the anti-corruption bill.

The draft law on prevention of corruption and confiscation of unlawfully acquired property will be presented on Wednesday to MPs from the two parties constituting the ruling coalition and the two parties supporting the coalition government.

Romania's National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) has sent to court 1,250 high-level cases last year, which is the highest number investigated in a year since the founding of the agency, DNA chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi has said.

Vote and Beyond (Oy ve Ötesi) was founded by Sercan Çelebi and a number of his friends, aiming to check claims of electoral fraud by monitoring ballot boxes on election day and developing a wider sense of participatory citizenship

Bulgaria is among the ten EU member states where at least half of all companies say corruption is a problem for them when doing business, a Eurobarometer survey shows. 

In Romania and Greece, the share is 74%, followed by Bulgaria (61%) and Italy (60%).

On Tuesday, the Montenegrin Interior Ministry signed a 2 million euro contract for an automated fingerprint identification system called  AFIS.

The AFIS system, originally developed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for use in criminal cases, will compare nationally issued ID cards and fingerprints with the voters registry. AFIS will be operational within three months.