Bulgarian Socialist Leader May Lose MEP Seat to 28-Year-old Candidate

Sergey Stanishev, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Party of European Socialists and former Bulgarian Prime Minister. Photo by BGNES

In a surprising turn, Sergey Stanishev, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), may lose the MEP seat to 28-year-old Momchil Nekov, who is 15th on the election list.

Nekov is believed to have received a huge portion of the preference vote in the European Parliament elections on Sunday due to a misunderstanding.

Many supporters of ruling party BSP are believed to have ticked #15 twice, both on the party option and on the preference vote option, thereby backing Nekov, candidate #15, instead of Stanishev, candidate #1 on the list of BSP.

Although the conclusive data from the Central Electoral Commission is not available yet, sources close to the matter say that he won more than the necessary 27 000 preference votes, thereby triggering a reordering of the first four names on the election list of the socialists, namely Sergey Stanishev, Iliyana Yotova, Georgi Pirinski, and Petar Kurumbashev.

Nekov is the youngest candidate on the list of BSP.

He has a degree in International Economic Relations from the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) in Sofia and a degree in Political Management from the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".

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