site.btaMedia Services Swallowed Most of Funds for MEP Election Campaign - NGO

Sofia, August 1 (BTA) - The largest amount of funds in the campaign for election of members of the European Parliament were set aside for media services - 6.815 million leva - which is 57.6 per cent of all the money spent, Antoaneta Tsoneva of the Institute for Public Environment Development said. She was presenting the conclusions based on the reports of the participants to the National Audit Office at a Friday news conference hosted by BTA. 
   
Mass events and advertisements cost 2,663,651 leva (22.5 per cent); other materials, business trips and taxes - 1.22 million leva or 10.3 per cent; rents, transport and other - 713,273 leva or 6 per cent. The twenty-three runners in the elections have spent a total of 11,829,306 leva.
    
The largest amounts of money invested in the campaign are as follows: Bulgaria Without Censorship (BwC) - 1,926,301 leva; Coalition for Bulgaria (CfB) - 1,899,282 leva; GERB - 1,622,993 leva; the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) - 1,610,076 leva; the Reformist Bloc (RB) - 770,486 leva. The largest amounts of money without a positive outcome were invested by:  Ataka -1,390,128 leva; the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria - 79,4007 leva and the United Democrats Coalition - 710,486 leva.   
   
Tsoneva noted that conditionally one vote for BwC cost 8.07 leva; for RB - 5.34 leva; doe CfB - 4.48 leva; for MRF - 4.16 leva and for GERB - 2.38 leva.
    
Private TV companies have received 40 per cent of the funds for media reporting (2,554,016 of a total of over 6.2 million leva).

Costs for electronic media which have been reported but not identified amount to 18.9 per cent (1,189,128 leva); for online newspapers, magazines and agencies - 13.2 per cent (829,188 leva); for printed media - 13 per cent (816,785 leva); and for private radio stations - 7.1 per cent (446,059 leva).