Dimitar Marinov, the extravagant presidential hopeful known as Mityo Pishtova ("the Pistol"), has told a TV morning program he had realized his role as a "puppet" in the upcoming election.

Pishtova has told the anchor of bTV's breakfast show he has already asked election authorities whether he could pull out of the race.

His words come just after reports emerged that Georgi Georgiev, the head of the party which raised his candidacy, had also backed the nomination of other contenders, such as Kemil Ramadan.

A man named Angel Gadzhev, according to a report aired by bTV earlier this week, turned out to be a PR expert for several initiative committees that stand behind candidates such as Rumen Galabinov, Yordanka Koleva, Diana Dimitrova, Kemil Ramadan, and even the socialist-backed candidate, Rumen Radev.

The initiative committees, which register independent candidates (or those backed by parties but not raised by them for "technical" reasons such as Radev), allegedly avail themselves of BGN 2 M in "media packages" handed out to those contenders who do not enjoy state subsidies (allocated to parties with more than 1% support at the last parliamentary election) Grants are also transferred from the central budget to committees that take part in the information campaign of the forthcoming referendum.

Technically, a "centre" may raise the nominations of several presidential pairs.

Each candidate who does not use party subsidies is handed out BGN 40 000.

"I don't even know where my media packages are," Pishtova has explained, adding it was only on Tuesday that he went to the Central Electoral Commission to check some details around his campaign and found out the funding had not been allocated the way he and Georgiev had agreed.

 

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