Bulgarian Court Rules Election of Gabrovo Mayor Is Legal

Nikolay Sirakov from Bulgaria’s ruling GERB party took the oath of office as the new Mayor of the city of Gabrovo. Photo by Dariknews Gabrovo

The Administrative Court in Bulgaria’s central city of Gabrovo rejected the legal challenge of the conservative party, RZS, of the election of the new city mayor.

In late June, the Order, Law and Justice party (RZS) filed a complaint against the way local elections were held in Gabrovo, citing a number of alleged inaccuracies in the vote.

On June 19, 2010, Nikolay Sirakov from Bulgaria's center-right ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party was elected the new mayor of Gabrovo after winning 57% of the votes. The RZS candidate Pencho Penchev ranked third with 10.5 % of the votes.

Party leader, Yane Yanev, insisted they found a discrepancy in the number of votes for Sirakov and demanded a runoff.

“We have processed the documents for all 125 sectional reports and have found a discrepancy in 3 863 votes. This means that if the discrepancy we have found is true, Nikolay Sirakov from GERB was not going to be elected in the first round. With 1 201 less than the announced 9 330 votes, he had to go to a runoff,” Yanev said.

The Court, however, ruled Thursday the challenge was unfounded and there wasn’t any sound proof because the above said conclusions have not been based on the entire documentation, but only on a fraction of it and on selected abstracts.

The voting activity in Gabrovo in June was only 25.55%.

The early mayor elections in Gabrovo had to be held after the previously elected mayor of the city Tomislav Donchev was appointed minister in charge of EU funds absorption in the Borisov government in March 2010.

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