site.btaSocialist-Backed Independent Candidate for Sofia Mayor Seeks Nullification of Elections that She Lost

November 11 (BTA) - The Socialist-backed independent
candidate for Sofia mayor, Maya Manolova, has filed an
application for nullification of the local elections which she
lost, over multiple violations. Speaking to reporters outside
the local election commission on Monday where she went with her
campaign staff, Manolova said that they submitted 14 files of
proofs of grave election violations.

Nominated by a steering committee and backed by the Bulgarian
Socialist Party, Manolova lost narrowly the second round of
elections on November 3 to long-serving mayor and GERB candidate
 Yordanka Fandakova. The exit polls initially showed a much
bigger difference between the two candidates but it thinned to
less than 5 per cent after all ballots were counted.  

She said her staff has established hundreds of violations. These
 fall in four groups: violations concerning the voter registers;
 violations concerning the tally sheets; violations concerning
the ballots and their counting; and violations concerning the
organization of voting.

Manolova argued that all of these have distorted the election
result.

Her team would alert international organizations including the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the
Venice Commission, as well as the ambassadors of the EU
countries and the US about the way elections are held in
Bulgaria.

She said that her team has found irregularities in over 60 per
cent of the tally sheets in Sofia, which makes 900 tally sheets.
 

Also, the second round of the elections had nearly 7,000 invalid
 ballots. 

"At the same time, the tally sheets with predominant Roma
population are perfect and there are practically no invalid
ballots there, which essentially confirms the information we
have that the voting in these sections was done with pre-marked
ballots," Manolova said. 

She added that her campaign staff submitted close to 40
complaints for vote buying and controlled votes and the
law-enforcers and the election administration has not reacted.

Manolova is starting a petition for fair elections which calls
for voiding the mayoral elections in Sofia, introduction of
electronic and machine voting, clear rules for the exit poll of
the polling agencies, and for voter registration. LN/RY

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