GERB party

The organisers of the Lukov March, commemorating the memory of controversial Bulgarian general Hristo Lukov, said on their website last week that their 17th annual nationalist march will be held on February 22, the date on which Lukov was assassinated.

The announcement came despite the prosecution announcing on Friday that it will examine whether or not the march is legal.

Yordanka Fandakova, acting mayor of Sofia and nominee of the ruling GERB party, won the second round of local elections in the Bulgarian capital against the protest candidate and former ombudsperson Maya Manolova on Sunday.

Control of 19 out of 28 regional cities in Bulgaria will be contested in the second round of local elections held on 3 November, though experts predict little drama and a repeat - albeit less decisive - victory for the ruling GERB party of Prime Minister Boyko Borsissov, compared to its record 2015 local elections result.

There will be second round of local election in Bulgaria's second largest city of Plovdiv as well, BNT reported.

GERB Chair Boyko Borisсov on September 9 signed framework political agreements for the local elections with United Farmers and Bulgarian Democratic Forum. On the part of the United Farmers party, the agreement was signed by the party's chairperson Petya Stavreva, and on the part of the Bulgarian Democratic Forum party, it was signed by Zhakline Toleva, reports BNT. 

The ruling GERB party and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) have signed a political framework agreement for the local elections, said GERB's press office. 

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov's party GERB on August 15 named its candidates for mayors of Plovdiv, Rousse, and Haskovo in the forthcoming local government elections in October 2019, reports BNT

The incumbent mayors in the three cities are from the GERB party, but they are not among the newly named candidates.

Reports of unusual concentrations of preferential votes for unlikely candidates in smaller settlements emerged soon after the election.

An open data extraction tool produced by the Bivol investigative website, which shows where each candidate won their preferential votes, facilitated the journalists' work.

Bulgaria's elections bucked several perceived trends throughout the EU. For one, there was no Green wave. In Bulgaria, as in the rest of Eastern Europe, green parties remain a negligible force. As if to drive that point home, the youth climate-strike movement that mobilized many youngsters in various countries across Europe failed to make any headway in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria's Prime Minister and GERB leader on May 27 was in the city of Gabrovo to check the construction of the city's roundabout. Speaking to journalists, he said he was pleased with his party's victory at Sunday's European Parliament elections, reports BNT.