Most papers today highlight the arrest of three officials from the Executive Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture, among them its Executive Director Yancho Yanev. Trud newspaper writes that the mother-in-law of one of the detainees helped bust the group which had allegedly received European funding on the basis of falsified documents. The 24 Chassa adds that soon after they were indicted, the three were released on bail.

The media give broad coverage to the amendments to the Election Code voted by the legal affairs committee of parliament yesterday. Sega newspaper writes that the GERB-submitted proposal to allow the Central Election Commission to permit additional ballot boxes in polling stations abroad failed miserably in the face of opposition over fears of election fraud.

Under the headline “Can the elections be rigged?” Dnevnik newspaper comments that ten days before the presidential elections in the country the question of a fair vote is still on the agenda. The weakest link in the election process that could pave the way to manipulation, other than controlled voting and vote buying, would be the registering of election returns at the local election commissions. Politicians and experts say that there is no way rigging can be prevented 100 percent.

Duma writes, regarding the authorization of Bulgaria’s permanent representative to the EU to sign the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), that the decision was made by the Borissov cabinet without looking into the potential effect of the document and the enormous risks it entails for consumers, labour and civil rights, national businesses or Bulgarian democracy.

Standart highlights the funding granted for saving the Rozhen observatory. The subsidy will be spent on the renovation of the research infrastructure and repairs of the administrative buildings and living quarters. In July this year experts from the observatory sounded the alarm that for years it has been barely surviving and could be closed down because it has not undergone a complete overhaul since it was built.

English version: Milena Daynova