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Nationalist Party to Contest Mayoral Vote Results in Bulgaria's Plovdiv

Politics » DOMESTIC | November 3, 2015, Tuesday // 14:32

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Bulgaria: Nationalist Party to Contest Mayoral Vote Results in Bulgaria's Plovdiv

Valeri Simeonov, leader of the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria. Photo by BGNES

A Bulgarian nationalist party has said it will contest mayoral election results in the city of Plovdiv over "violations".

At a press conference following the local vote, Valeri Simeonov, the leader of the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB), cast doubt on the fairness of Sunday's voting process. The candidate for mayor backed by the party came second in a runoff vote on Sunday.

The NFSB is part of the nationalist coalition called Patriotic Front which backs Bulgaria's minority government.

Its candidate in Plovdiv, Slavcho Atanasov, lost to Ivan Totev, whose candidacy for a second term in office was proposed by the main ruling GERB party.

The race in Plovdiv was too close to call, with the distance between the two candidates during vote processing ranging between 1.5 and 0.4%.

Totev won by a margin of just 1500 votes, prompting the Patriotic Front to say it would demand a second count of ballots.

On Wednesday Simeonov also called for amendments to election law, adding hisparty had already submitted its proposals, and urged a more assertive reaction of law enforcement agencies to eradicated practices such as vote buying.

In Simeonov's words, the Interior Ministry has been unable to tackle vote buying despite efforts by "the present leadership of the Interior Ministry over the past years". (The present leadership was appointed earlier this year.)