Major Sofia Mayor Hopeful Faces Slander Trial

Georgi Kadiev, Sofia Mayor runner endorsed by the left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party. Photo by BGNES

A trail for slander has been launched against Georgi Kadiev, one of the major runners for the October 23 local elections in the Bulgarian capital.

Two Sofia municipal councilmen, Orlin Ivanov, and Radoslav Toshev, as well as Sofia regional governor Danail Georgiev, have accused Kadiev of deliberately lying that they have tried to bribe the ruling centrist-right GERB party's presidential runner Rosen Plevneliev back in 2007.

"A trial like that will most likely not be developed before the elections, even though it is our sincere wish to make truth come out." Orlin Ivanov said on Saturday, as cited by dnes.dir.bg.

Two weeks ago, left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party Sofia Mayor candidate Kadiev claimed he knew the names of the three municipal councilmen who allegedly tried to bribe Plevneliev back in 2007. Reports say that, even though Plevneliev turned down the offer, he failed to report the incident, which has been used against him by his opponents for a week now.

According to Kadiev, Plevneliev shared the names of the three councilmen with current Bulgarian Socialist Party MP Petar Korumbashev, who in his turn informed the Mayor runner.

The scandal was provoked by an unexpected statement on behalf of GERB's vice-chair and Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov that back in 2007 Plevneliev turned down a bribery attempt at Sofia Municpality, but failed to report it to authorities.

According to Tsvetanov, in 2007, Plevneliev told him that three municipal councilmen from the City Hall, known as the "municipal brokers," asked him for a bribe of EUR 500 000 to secure his ownership of a small land plot in the Sofia Business Park, one of the top projects of the presidential nomination of the centrist-right  GERB while he was a businessman.

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