Bulgarian Ruling Party Exploits Children in Election Campaign - Opposition

The left-wing oppositional Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) has come up with disturbing claims regarding the ruling centrist-right GERB's alleged exploitation of children during the country's local elections campaign.

According to the oppositional party, schoolchildren have been used to glue up GERB campaign posters in towns and cities across the country.

First graders from the town of Troyan have received children's books featuring the local GERB Mayor candidate on the cover, Maya Manolova from BSP, the most vocal oppositional lawmaker, further stated in the Bulgarian parliament on Wednesday.

She added that schoolchildren from the southern city of Pernik received bear-shaped light-reflecting key holders containing a message by current GERB MP Irena Sokolova, the party's Pernik Mayor runner.

"People fill the squares during our campaign rallies, while nobody attends your party's events," Iskra Fidosova, a key GERB MP, stated in her answer to Manolova's claims, expressing her suspicion that her words showed that BSP is too worried it may lose the elections.

In April, a school propaganda scandal erupted in Bulgaria after it turned out that schoolchildren from the town of Peshtera have taken part in a contest to solve historical, logic and sports problems with teams receiving one word as prize for each successful solution. The final phrase ended reading "We Are GERB, We Are Stronger with You."

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