Политика

Initiative Committee raises the candidacy of Atanas Vodev in the race for mayor of the municipality of Velingrad. The Chairman of the Initiative Committee is Eng. Stefan Shulev, Director of the Hristo Botev Vocational High School of Forestry, and members are Sashka Zhekova, Dr. Georgi Doshev, Avram Jerev and Roman Chilev. After registering with the Municipal Election Commission on January 10, the Initiative Committee will begin collecting the 500 signatures required by law to raise an independent candidate for mayor of the municipality. Currently, Mr. Atanas Vodev is acting interim mayor of the municipality. In the autumn 2003 elections. he entered the Municipal Council with the NDSV list. By education he is an economist, he has worked as a teacher at the Vocational High School of Economics and Tourism "Aleko Konstantinov" and as a director of the Bureau of Labor - Velingrad. In the upcoming February 12, 2005. elections for mayor of the municipality of Velingrad Atanas Vodev will run as an independent. It is expected that this week his candidacy will receive support from the majority of major political parties in the municipality. Unofficially, most of them have already declared readiness to stand behind the candidacy of Atanas Vodev and he has a real chance to unite most of the political spectrum locally.
The decision to raise Mr. Vodev apart from his personal and professional qualities have influenced the results of the poll conducted a few days ago in Velingrad and several of the major settlements in the municipality by the National Center for Public Opinion Research (NCIOM). The results are not officially released, but outline the candidacy as familiar and well-accepted among various community groups.
Who will be the other participants in the mayoral elections will become clear on January 17, when the deadline for registration of the mayoral candidates expires and the draw for the ballot numbers will be drawn. Familiar names are heard in the public domain, but last-minute surprises are also not excluded. Will the municipality of Velingrad again set a record with a huge number of contenders for the mayoral chair (in the last election the number of candidates was 15) or will it go to the other extreme of full polarization between a minimum number of candidates? There's still a week left for combinations and guesses, and the real answer will be clear next Monday.
Tempo