Ivan Ivanov

Mayor candidates endorsed by main ruling party GERB have won in at least seven regional centers in Bulgaria, according to first exit poll results in the run-off vote of local elections.

These include Plovdiv, Haskovo, Shumen, Vidin, Razgrad, Targovishte, Pernik, and Lovech.

The Bulgarian energy regulator KEVR announced Sunday it was lowering a "duty to society" surcharge on power prices for industrial consumers.

New power rates are in force as of Sunday, November 1, 2015, Focus News Agency quotes KEVR head Ivan Ivanov as saying.

The websites of the State Agency for National Security (DANS), the transport and information technologies ministry, and ballot-counting company Information Service have stopped responding.

DANS is the country's domestic security and counter-intelligence agency.

According to the latest exit polls, Yordanka Fandakova, the incumbent mayor of Sofia and candidate of the largest ruling GERB party, was reelected to a third consecutive term with 60 % of the votes in the local elections held in Bulgaria on Sunday.

According to the latest exit polls, run-offs for the mayors of the cities of Plovdiv, Shumen and Vidin are likely to take place as no candidate garnered more than 50 % of the votes at the first round of the local elections, which took place in Bulgaria on Sunday.

Bulgaria's energy regulator has proposed to cut the 'duty to society' fee levied on power prices for industrial consumers which was increased in August.

The Commission for Energy and Water Regulation, or KEVR, is proposing to cut the fee by BGN 1.07 to BGN 36.83 per megawatthour, VAT excluded, as of November 1, the head of the regulator Ivan Ivanov told reporters on Thursday.

Local elections are coming in just days, and Novinite is fully aware it did not provide the campaign coverage a news outlet covering a particular country usually does whatever vote is forthcoming.

Bulgaria's energy regulator KEVR said on Wednesday that it hasn't discussed capping prices of electricity purchased by state-owned National Electricity Company NEK from two local thermal power plants owned by U.S. investors.

"We fully comply with the provisions laid down in the Energy Act," KEVR Chairman Ivan Ivanov told reporters, according to investor.bg.

The participants in a discussion on Bulgaria's energy exchange agreed that legal amendments were to pave the way for a change of the model so that the full liberalization of the market was achieved by the beginning of 2016.

The Bulgarian employers' organisations are postponing the protest scheduled to take place on September 30 against the increase of the electricity prices.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the employers' organisations are postponing the protest due to the renewed dialogue with the government and parliament, daily Dnevnik informs.