Incumbent Praised as Ruling Party's Top Choice for Sofia Mayor Runner

Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova will most probably run for a second term in the fall. Photo by BGNES

Yordanka Fandakova, the current Mayor of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, has been named as the ruling centrist-right GERB party's top choice for the upcoming local elections in the fall.

"I believe she is a great pedagogue, because, as you know, she has worked as a teacher and a principal, which means she has unlimited abilities that she can further develop," Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Bulgaria's Interior Minister and head of GERB's election campaign, said Tuesday, without specifying how Fandakova's career would help her as a Mayor.

However, Tsvetanov pointed out a lot of other potential Sofia Mayor candidates are being considered by GERB, according to the Dnevnik daily. The Interior Minister refused to discuss the party's probable presidential nominees for the upcoming elections, again set for the fall.

If Fandakova indeed ends up running for a second term, that would give an end to speculations about her possible participation in GERB's future presidential tandem.

Thus far, the main candidates for the position of Sofia Mayor apart from GERB's Fandakova are Georgi Kadiev from the main opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party and Proshko Proshkov, elected on preliminaries in rightist Blue Coalition Sunday.

Fandakova has been Sofia's Mayor since pre-term elections in the fall of 2009, after then-incumbent Sofia Mayor and GERB leader Boyko Borisov went to become Bulgaria's PM when GERB swept general elections in July 2009.

Fandakova, who has a background as a school headmaster and teacher of Russian, served some months as PM Borisov's Minister of Education before being elected mayor.

2005-9 Fandakova was Borisov's vice-mayor, responsible for culture, education and sports

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