Политика

Exactly one year after the local elections, the municipality of Velingrad returned to its starting point. Elected on November 2, 2003. for mayor Fidel Beev was removed from office by a decision of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) of 21 October 2004.
A three-member panel of SAC chaired by Stefka Stoeva and members Boyan Magdalinchev and Yordan Kostadinov unanimously decided that Mr. Beev had violated Art. 41, para. 1, t. 8 of the Local Government and Local Administration Act. Such is the opinion of the Supreme Administrative Prosecutor's Office, reported to the court by Prosecutor Marusya Mindileva.
According to the cited article of the law, the mayors of municipalities are not entitled during their term to be managers of commercial companies and to carry out commercial activities. The Court held that there was indisputable evidence in the case that, after taking office as mayor on 28 January 2004. Fidel Beev has continued to be a manager and executive director and to pursue commercial activities in Beev Group Ltd., Sport Beevi AD and to be a partner in the Beevi Brothers collective company. According to the court, the text of the law aims to prevent any abuse of power by mayors and therefore the requirement not to be managers of companies applies to their entire term. Even if a "reasonable deadline" is given for exiting the trading companies, Fidel Beev has not complied with it, and there is irrefutable evidence that as mayor his companies traded with the municipality and the municipal firm "Stroycom". This gives grounds to the SAC to keep in force the decisions of the Municipal Electoral Commission - Velingrad and Pazardzhik District Court, by which the powers of Fidel Beev as Mayor of the municipality of Velingrad were terminated early. He was ordered to pay 750 leva in court costs to the OIC. (Highlights of the judgment are published separately).
The decision of the SAC is final and cannot be appealed to another instance. After it, the municipality of Velingrad faces new local elections, which this time will be partial - only for mayor of the municipality. The following is a procedure whereby the Municipal Election Commission will notify the Central Election Commission of the local elections, and it in turn will ask the President to schedule an election date. Determining the exact date of the election day is within the powers of President Georgi Parvanov.
One of the features of partial local elections is that the costs of them are borne not by the state, as is the case with regular elections, but by the municipality. Depending on the date specified by the president, it will be seen whether the municipal treasury will have to set aside money for elections from the budget for this year or for next year.
Elena Baeva