Polish Parliament Publishes Proof of Legitimacy of Contested Budget Vote

Scans of the voting protocols from the Friday 2017 budget vote confirming legitimacy of the procedure which the opposition considers illegal, were uploaded to the website of the Polish parliament on Monday.

WARSAW (Sputnik) – Ahead of the vote on Friday, one of the lawmakers was excluded from the debates over his speech against the planned restriction of the media access to parliament, which led to the opposition parliament members storming the main hall and forcing the rest of the lawmakers to convene in another room, where several votes, including the contested one on 2017 budget, took place.

According to the protocols, 236 lawmakers took part in the vote, which satisfies the minimum requirement of 230, with 234 voting in favor of the budget and two abstaining.

The lawmakers had voted by a show of hands with the secretaries counting the votes, which does not contradict the parliament's bylaws.

The oppositions' sit-in protests and public demonstrations on the streets of Warsaw have been going on since late Friday, with the protestants demanding to scrap the restriction on media and renouncing the vote on the budget as illegal.

The new media restrictions would allow only a limited number of television stations in Poland to record parliamentary sessions starting next year. The number of journalists allowed to attend the parliament sessions and have direct access to the lawmakers would be reduced to two per outlet.

Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed! https://telegram.me/sputniknewsint