Bulgarian Ruling Party Announces 47 Mayor Runners

A list of 47 approved Mayor candidates for the upcoming local elections in the fall was presented before the Bulgarian media by the country's ruling centrist-right GERB.

A total of 22 of the selected candidates are incumbents.

Ivan Totev is GERB's runner for the second largest Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. Totev is currently Regional Governor of the Plovdiv region.

Incumbent Detelina Nikolova is endorsed by GERB for the Northeastern city of Dobrich, while current Regional Governor Plamen Stoilov will run for the party in another of the bigger Northeastern cities, Ruse.

Regional governor Dimitar Alexandrov is the GERB candidate for the city of Shumen, also in Northeastern Bulgaria.

GERB MP Zhivko Todorov will run for Mayor of the Southern city of Stara Zagora. The city's curren Mayor, GERB representative Svetlin Tanchev, has declared he will not seek reelection.

Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Bulgaria's Interior Minister and head of GERB's election campaign, announced the candidates and shook their hands Sunday.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov endorsed the controversial Mayor of the town of Sliven and former football star Yordan Lechkov as GERB's candidate for the upcoming local elections.

Sliven's Mayor,  best known as a key member of the Bulgarian football squad that finished fourth at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, faces various charges including abuse of office and suspicious deals.

GERB has declared on several occasions it will put more efforts into its local elections campaign into the one for the presidential elections scheduled for the same date, October 23.