site.btaSofia Mayor Announces Officially Re-election Bid

109 POLITICS - LOCAL ELECTIONS - SOFIA MAYOR - FANDAKOVA-amp 1

Sofia Mayor Announces
Officially
Re-election Bid


Sofia, September 2 (BTA) - Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova said
she will seek re-election in the local elections on October 27.
She spoke during an inspection of the construction of a stretch
of the Sofia underground on Monday.

Fandakova has been mayor since 2009 when she took over from Boyko Borissov to serve out his term, becoming the first woman in this office. She was then elected to two consecutive full terms, in 2011 and 2015. It will be her third full term if she wins again.

"Sofia has been developing over the past ten years and is changing through hard work. Once again I will rely on a clear work agenda which includes new projects and ideas, new people and energy," said Fandakova. She said that work for Sofia should continue as this is her biggest motivation.

The Mayor said that her decision to run for re-election has not been made on impulse and is founded in her sense of responsibility for the trust she has received throughout all these years.

Fandakova's agenda will include three priorities: solving the issues with parking and open spaces in neighbourhoods; building connections between Sofia's neighbourhoods and parks and planting a green ring around Sofia; digitalization of the work of the Sofia municipal administration to encourage transparency and ease the administrative burden.

Fandakova said that the construction of the Sofia underground should continue alongside the expansion of the southern loop of Sofia's ring road which will start in September. The mayor plans to build inner-city rings which will ease traffic in the city.

A late August poll by Gallup International found that as many as 56 per cent of the residents of Sofia want a new mayor for the capital city, while 29 per cent want Yordanka Fandakova to keep her job.

Among the candidates for the mayor's office in Sofia are architect Borislav Ignatov (for the Right-wing coalition Democratic Bulgaria), Volen Siderov and Vesselin Mareshki (the leaders of the nationalist parties Ataka and Volya, respectively), and Boris Bonev of the popular Sofia-based NGO Spassi Sofia. National Ombudsman Maya Manolova is expected to announce her bid later this week (with likely support from the Bulgarian Socialist Party). LN,IG/PP
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