site.btaSofia Mayoral Runoff Candidates Comment on Electoral Process, Support from Other Parties

In a bTV interview, the mayoral candidate for Sofia of the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) and Save Sofia coalition, Vassil Terziev, said that there is a lot of work to be done to improve the electoral process in Bulgaria. "We should not have elections when there is a five-day vacation for children, there should not be so many invalid ballot papers - 15% of the ballot papers for the Municipal Councils in the country are invalid", Terziev said, also adding that voting machines should not be eliminated one day before the elections, as this also disheartens the citizens. Terziev appealed to the citizens of Sofia to vote on Sunday no matter who they support.

Answering a question related to the widening support for the mayoral candidate of the BSP-led coalition - Vanya Grigorova, for the upcoming runoff on November 5, Terziev said that he has a talent to unite people. "I have united a lot of people who want a different, modern, progressive future for this city, and I have managed to consolidate the ranks of my political opponent, who has also received additional support from There Is Such a People and Mr. [Boyko] Borissov. You can see very clearly where the divide is - it neither lies on the left, nor on the right [political] spectrum," Terziev said, adding that the divide is whether Sofia will be a modern and progressive city, governed by an independent person with a strong team or not.

Speaking to bTV, BSP's mayoral candidate for Sofia Vanya Grigorova denied having held talks for support from other parties for the upcoming runoff. Commenting on GERB leader Boyko Borissov's statement, in which he expressed support for her for the runoff, Grigorova said she had heard what Borissov had said. "I heard what Borissov said, that I am the better candidate, and I cannot disagree with him," she stressed.

Commenting on the request of BSP leader Korneliya Ninova for her to disassociate herself from the support expressed by Borissov, Grigorova said that her entire election campaign was built on explanations that the current state of Sofia is a consequence of the Sofiyanski model of governance (naming it after Stefan Sofiyanski who was Sofia mayor between 1995 and 2005), and the following GERB model of governance. She added that that the “assemblage” (a word that is often used for the government of CC-DB and GERB when the speaker wants to underscore its perceived unprincipled nature) that is about to be copied in Sofia is against the interests of its citizens.

"It is not me, but CC-DB who form an 'assemblage' with GERB and the GERB candidate no longer participates in the elections. It is now me and the CC-DB candidate who are in the runoff. All these calls could have made sense by Sunday. We already have results," Grigorova argued.