Bulgarian Mayor Hopeful Renews Bribery Scandal Claims against Top Presidential Runner

Left-wing Bulgarian Socialist Party candidate for Mayor of Sofia Georgi Kadiev has renewed his attacks against Rosen Plevneliev, the ruling centrist-right GERB's presidential 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 names Plevneliev told Korumbashev are the same that emerged in the media yesterday. There is nothing new – Orlin Ivanov, Radoslav Toshev and Danail Kirilov," Kadiev stated Friday, as cited by Darik radio. The three were members of different political formations back in 2007, but went on to join GERB afterwards.

The scandal was provoked by last Friday's 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.

Wednesday, Plevneliev gave a special press conference on the case, stating that he has never been solicited to bribe anyone. At the same time, a 2007 interview in the Banker newspaper surfaced, in which the GERB candidate tells about the incident.

"What we have now is a veritable Bulgarian Watergate - in the original Watergate an acting president lied to the public, and now a presidential candidate does the same," the socialist Sofia mayor hopeful daclared Thursday.

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