Criminal charges for slander have been brought against socialist candidate for Sofia Mayor Georgi Kadiev by the three men he named as the bribe brokers in the scandal with GERB's presidential candidate Rosen Plevneliev.

Sofia Municipal Councilors Orlin Ivanov and Radoslav Toshev, together with Sofia District Governor Danail Kirilov, were cited by the left-wing runner for Mayor of Sofia as having asked EUR 500 000 from Rosen Plevneliev to take a 'favorable' decision on Business Park Sofia.

Ivanov, Toshev and Kirilov were adamant that they had not exerted pressure on Plevneliev on the project in 2007 and 2008.

Ivanov explained that that three would file separate claims worth BGN 50 000 against Kadiev.

The scandal with the former Regional Development Minister and current presidential hopeful of ruling center-right party GERB was provoked by an unexpected statement on behalf of GERB's vice-chair and Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov that back in 2007 Plevneliev turned down a bribery attempt at Sofia Municpality, but failed to report it to authorities.

According to Tsvetanov, in 2007, Plevneliev told him that three municipal councilmen from the City Hall, known as the "municipal brokers," asked him for a bribe of EUR 500 000 to secure his ownership of a small land plot in the Sofia Business Park, one of the top projects of the presidential nomination of the centrist-right  GERB while he was a businessman.

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