Manolova’s initiative committee will seek nullification of Sofia mayoral vote

The initiative committee that nominated Maya Manolova in the Sofia mayoral elections said on November 4 that by the end of the week it would present a request for nullification of the elections. The former ombudsperson and independent candidate Maya Manolova, who was backed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party lost the run-off in Sofia.

According to her initiative committee there were many violations and alerts for vote-buying. They gave an example with empty voting protocols with no results filled in them, as well as discrepancies in the exit polls results on the polling day, which according to them was in favour of the opponent Yordanka Fandakova.

They also said that the number of voters in Sofia in the first round of the elections were by 100,000 more.

Nikola Vaptsarov from Manolova’s initiative committee said that it would seek nullification of the elections because of their understanding that the vote was manipulated, not only because of errors in the voting protocols, but also becuase of “ the whole media propaganda machine that was driven to demotivate the Bulgarian people to vote”, he said.

Speaking at a briefing on the night of November 3 after voting ended and official exit poll results were released, Manolova said that according to her campaign staff, citing a parallel vote count, the difference between her and Fandakova was less than 3%.

I really did my best in a difficult, cruel and dishonest campaign, Monclova said.

GERB responded that the demand for nullification of the elections was a popular political technology used by those who lose the elections.