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The 2023 Sofia mayoral election was held on 29 October 2023, during the 2023 Bulgarian local elections, to elect the next mayor of Sofia.
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The 2023 Sofia mayoral election was held on 29 October 2023, during the 2023 Bulgarian local elections, to elect the next mayor of Sofia.
For the past 14 years (since 2009), the mayor of Sofia has been Yordanka Fandakova, from the party GERB. [1]
Fandakova served four terms, including three full terms, as mayor of Sofia, becoming the first woman to serve in the position and the longest serving mayor of Sofia. [2] [3]
During Fandakova's time in office, the public transportation system has been expanded, in particular with a number of projects aimed at expanding the Sofia metro. [4] [5] Additionally, Fandakova has taken credit for initiating the project "Green Sofia", which is supposed to support initiatives meant to make Sofia more environmentally friendly. [6] [7]
However, Fandakova's tenure as mayor has also come under scrutiny. [8] Fandakova has been accused of allowing corruption in new construction projects. [9] [10] Specifically, critics of Fandakova have identified the construction of the new metro lines as a source of corruption, often leading to inefficient results. [11]
Calls for Fandakova to resign increased in the period between 2018 and 2019, with her vice-mayor, Evgeni Krusev, resigning his position due to mismanagement of repairs in the "Grafa" district. [12] However, Fandakova herself refused to resign, and sought a third term as Mayor in the 2019 Sofia Mayoral Elections. [13] Fandakova faced a challenge in the 2019 elections, from BSP-supported independent, Maya Manolova, VMRO candidate Dzhambanski and leader of the civic organisation Spasi Sofia, Boris Bonev, as well as other candidates. [14] [15] According to some polls, Maya Manolova was even in the lead, ahead of the incumbent. [16] Fandakova ended up narrowly defeating Manalova in the second round, [17] although Manolova has claimed that election fraud took place, and called for a recount. [18]
Every Bulgarian citizen older than 18 and who is registered in Sofia City is allowed to run for the position of mayor of Sofia. [19]
| Candidate name, age, political party | Political offices | Endorsing parties | Campaign announcement | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vasil Terziev (45) PP–DB |  |
|
| 27 June 2023 [21] | |
| Deyan Nikolov (34) Revival |  |
| 4 July 2023 [22] | ||
| Vili Lilkov (69) Independent |  |
|
| 16 July 2023 [28] | |
| Vanya Grigorova (45) Independent |
|
| 25 August 2023 [30] | ||
| Radostin Vasilev (39) Independent |  |
|
| 5th September 2023 [31] | |
| Mariya Koleva (63) Pravoto |
|
| 6 September 2023 [32] | ||
| Karlos Kontrera (37) VMRO |
| 17th September 2023 [33] | |||
| Alexander Tomov (70) BSDE |
| 17th September 2023 [34] | |||
| Krasimir Stoychev (68) Independent |
|
| 20th September 2023 [35] | ||
| Simeon Ananiev (68) Independent |
| 19th September 2023 [36] | |||
| Ivaylo Valchev (52) ITN |  |
| 21st September 2023 [37] | ||
| Anton Hekimyan (39) Independent |
| 21 September 2023 [38] | |||
| Violeta Komitova (67) Bulgarian Rise |
| 27 September 2023 [39] | |||
| Svetoslav Vitkov (67) People's Voice |  |
| 27 September 2023 [40] | ||
| Asen Angelov (45) Independent |
| 28 September 2023 [41] | |||
| Mazhd Algafari (56) Independent |
|
| 28 September 2023 [42] | ||
| Petar Klisarov (56) Direct Democracy |
| 28 September 2023 [43] | |||
| Kamen Dyulgerov (45) Independent |
|
| 28 September 2023 [44] | ||
| Emil Atanasov BSD |
|
| 28 September 2023 [45] | ||
| Georgi Nedelchev BUDD |
| 28 September 2023 [46] | |||
| Kalin Krulev ONB |
| 28 September 2023 [47] | |||
| Teodor Dechev (62) BSDP |
| 2 October 2023 [48] | |||
The following candidates were not registered as candidates for the Sofia Mayoral Election, despite announcing their intention to participate in it.
The following candidates withdrew from the race from the Sofia Mayoral Election before the registration date.
The following individuals were speculated to have been interested in running within the Sofia Mayoral election, but eventually decided not to run.
Vasil Terziev was announced as the joint candidate of PPDB, Spasi Sofia and Team for Sofia on the 27 June 2023.
The candidate of the party "SBOR", Asen Angelov, gained some notoriety due to his campaigns use of unconventional campaign strategies: such as internet memes or the use of door-to-door campaigning rather then mass rallies. [63] The campaign similarly gained some attention due to its intense spending on advertisements (potentially up to 130,000 Leva), while still receiving a rather disappointing result. [64]
| Fieldwork date | Polling firm | Terziev | Hekimyan | Nikolov | Grigorova | Lilkov | Valchev | Vaptsarov | Komitova | Kontrera | Undecided | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21–24 Oct 2023 | Alpha Research | 29.8% | 21.1% | 10.2% | 20.2% | 8.3% | 3.4% | N/A | 1.9% | 0.6% | 4.5% | 8.7% |
| 16–20 Oct 2023 | SovaHarris | 32.9% | 22.9% | 13.1% | 20.8% | 4.0% | 3.2% | N/A | 1.7% | 1.8 | 1.7% | 10.0% |
| 10–17 Oct 2023 | Mediana | 24.8% | 21.4% | 13.4% | 22.2% | 7.2% | 5.4% | N/A | 1.8 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 2.6% |
| 29 Sept–9 Oct 2023 | ESTAT | 27.8% | 18.7% | 4.7% | 20.6% | 6.4% | 2.4% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 7.2% |
| 21- 25 July 2023 | Center for Analysis and Marketing | 33.4% | 22.7% | 12% | 10.6% | 4.8% | N/A | 0.8% | N/A | N/A | N/A | 10.7% |
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| Candidate | Party | 1st Round | 2nd Round | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | |||
| Vasil Terziev | PP-DB | 119,121 | 31.80 | 175,044 | 48.20 | |
| Vanya Grigorova | BSPzB | 80,875 | 21.59 | 170,258 | 46.89 | |
| Anton Hekimyan | GERB-SDS | 66,792 | 17.83 | |||
| Deyan Nikolov | Revival | 29,052 | 7.76 | |||
| Vili Lilkov | Blue Sofia | 21,356 | 5.69 | |||
| Ivaylo Valchev | ITN | 11,861 | 3.17 | |||
| Radostin Vasilev | Independent | 9,450 | 2.52 | |||
| Violeta Komitova | BV | 4,333 | 1.16 | |||
| Karlos Kontrera | VMRO | 3,462 | 0.92 | |||
| Svetoslav Vitkov | GN | 2,335 | 0.62 | |||
| Asen Angelov | SBOR | 2,320 | 0.62 | |||
| Petar Klisarov | DD | 1,850 | 0.49 | |||
| Teodor Dechev | BSDP | 1,682 | 0.45 | |||
| Krasimir Stoychev | Zelenite | 1,581 | 0.42 | |||
| Mazhd Algafari | CfC | 776 | 0.21 | |||
| Mariya Koleva | Pravoto | 642 | 0.17 | |||
| Alexander Tomov | BSDE | 638 | 0.17 | |||
| Kamen Dyulgerov | BG | 580 | 0.15 | |||
| Yemil Atanasov | BSD | 563 | 0.15 | |||
| Simeon Ananiev | MIR | 452 | 0.12 | |||
| Georgi Nedelchev | BUDD | 417 | 0.11 | |||
| Kalin Krulev | ONB | 412 | 0.11 | |||
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