Scandal Mars Miss Bulgaria Pageant

The crown of Miss Bulgaria 2012 was revoked after the jury found out that the audience online votes for her had come mainly from several countries in Asia. Photo by Cross.bg

The jury had revoked the crown of Miss Bulgaria 2012 Ina Mancheva after it was established that a hacker attack had manipulated the online vote of the audience.

The news was announced Thursday by TV7, which was the main organizer of the pageant.

The new Miss Bulgaria is now the first runner-up, Gabriela Vassileva.

The audience vote counted as 3 points, but a check of the organizers revealed the manipulation and showed that Vassileva was actually one point ahead of Mancheva.

The votes for Mancheva had come in large numbers from some very strange places such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, the jury says, admitting their own mistakes and promising that next year they will close the online vote two days prior to the conclusion of the pageant in order to have time to count and verify the results.

"This decision is hurting my self-esteem, but made me wiser... This pageant must be honest. I wish Gabriela luck at the world contest. I feel offended because these results had to be checked earlier," Mancheva commented.

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