The die-hard rightist party of former Prime Minister Ivan Kostov will go solo in the upcoming local vote in Sofia, should the other biggest rightist party back the current mayor Boyko Borisov.

The decision was taken at an urgent meeting of the Sofia unit of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) amidst worries that right-wing parties are hopelessly lagging behind in preparations for the vote.

At the beginning of August, just days after vowing allegiance to DSB, Bulgaria's major rightist party Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) surprisingly declared its support for a second term of the current Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov.

Ivan Kostov is known to be at daggers drawn with Boyko Borisov, claiming he is linked to the mafia.

The performance of right-wing parties in elections has been going from bad to worse since 2001 and ended up with a crushing defeat at the MEP elections in May this year.

Both Ivan Kostov, leader of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, and Petar Stoyanov, leader of the Union of Democratic Forces, resigned after their parties failed to win a single seat in the European Parliament.

Two months later Ivan Kostov was re-elected leader of the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, while Petar Stoyanov was replaced by businessman Plamen Yurukov.

Relations between Kostov and Stoyanov soured in the late 90s when they were respectively prime minister and president and matters were not helped by Kostov leaving UDF to set up the splinter DSB three years ago.

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