One-Party Choice At Bulgarian Poll

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1949, Page 4

One -Party Choice At Bulgarian Poll

SOFIA, Sun. (10 a.m.) —More than 10,000 polling booths opened in Bulgaria this morning to deal with the 5,785,000 eligible voters in today’s election.

Two hundred and thirty-nine deputies are being elected to the National Assembly and 955 councillors to 14 regional councils, ie nev local government units.

Polling booths were decked with pictures of Stalin, Bulgarian hags and emblems of the dove of peace. Voters’ task is not difficult. They merely have to say “Yes” or “No” to a single list of Communist-chosen Fatherland Front candidates. The candidates ire pledged to support the five-year plan. At frequent intervals the radio appeals to the people to vote “Yes." These appeals promise rapid improvements now that—as the broadcasts put it—saboteurs anr spies have been liquidated 1946 POLL RECALLED At the last Bulgarian elections, in 1946. the Leader of the Opposition Agrarians alleged that they had not been free.

The Opposition, he said, had taken part only to show that they were not afraid to enter the contest, and there had been sufficient irregularities to reduce the Opposition vote from an estimated 60 per cent to about 25 per cent.

He also alleged that many Opposition deputies had been arrested before polling, and that adherents of the Opposition had been placed in labour camps.