Great Britain is among the places with the biggest number of polling sections opened abroad for the parliamentary and presidential elections in Bulgaria on November 14. The election process in London has been going normally. Voter turnout is good and comparable to that of the previous parliamentary elections in July.

Bulgarians in Britain have not given up going to the polls and exercising their right to vote, Zhana Staleva, deputy chair of one of the polling stations in Wimbledon, UK, has told Radio Bulgaria. According to her, however, the organization of the whole electoral process could be significantly better:

"As people going through elections for the third time this year, we thought that work would become a bit easier and it turned out to be just the opposite. With each new election it becomes harder for us to control the situation," Zhana Staleva says and adds:

"During these elections we have had maybe three changes of CEC decisions related to the members of the election commissions, which came out at the last moment. Many party appointments did not show up at all. This morning, as far as I understand, there were stations in London in which only the volunteers came. These are 2 people out of 5 to 7-members."

Although every election is an expectation for something better to come, the past election campaign has left a bitter aftertaste due to the lack of constructive ideas for the future of Bulgaria.

"What happens before elections in Bulgaria looks like some circus performance. There is no valuable political debate, except for a few people who are trying to lead one," Zhana says.

This year's election series led to fatigue among voters and a lot of money spent in times of crisis, as only according to the plan-account for the two rounds of the November elections the sum reached over 63 million euros. Still, we could mention a positive fact – during the election campaigns, politicians started turning more attention to Bulgarians abroad, making them "more visible" to the society in Bulgaria.

"A few years ago Bulgarians abroad did not receive any attention, but now it has become clear that it can no longer continue like this. It is high time Bulgaria started thinking about the fact that we live in a global world, that we are in the 21st century and it is normal for citizens of this country to be living across the world. As citizens of this country, they have the full constitutional right to vote and they must be provided with normal conditions for doing this," Zhana Staleva says in an interview with Radio Bulgaria.

English: Alexander Markov