site.btaMayors in Half of Sofia Region's Municipalities Elected in First Round of Local Elections

Mayors in Half of Sofia Region's Municipalities Elected in First Round of Local Elections

Sofia, October 27 (BTA) - The mayors in 11 of a total of 22 municipalities in Sofia region have already been elected in Sunday's local elections. Run-off elections will be held in the rest, the results published on the Central Election Commission (CEC) site show.

The data reflect the results by 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday at 100 per cent processed tally-sheets of district section commissions processed by municipal election commissions. Only the results in Etropole municipality are based on 95.45 per cent of processed tally-sheets.

CEC will cope with the processing of the tally-sheets within the time-limit of 48 hours after the end of the elections established by law, CEC member and Spokesman Tsvetozar Tomov told BTA on Tuesday.

In respect to the national referendum, CEC will have to come out with a pronouncement on the final results within five days, after the tally-sheets from abroad have also been processed.

GERB-Dobrich has demanded a vote-count by hand, following an appeal by GERB MP and regional representative Zhivko Martinov submitted to the municipal election commission, its spokesman Daniel Marinov said.

The appeal claims numerous violations of election legislation which reflected on the final results.

The Bulgaria for Citizens Movement demands new vote-counts in Smolyan, Stara Zagora, Bourgas, Velingrad and Belovo because of the suspiciously large number of invalid ballot papers and corrections in the tally sheets, the party press office said.

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Denis Ahmed of Tsarev Brod village, who was charged with vote-buying has come to an agreement with the Regional Prosecution Office in Shoumen (Northeastern Bulgaria). He was sentenced to 11 months of imprisonment the serving of which has been deferred by 3 years and six months. The agreement has been approved by Shoumen Regional Court, the local Interior Ministry division said.

Ahmed was arrested in the course of a specialized police operation to counteract illegal migration and crimes related to the political rights of citizens.