site.btaSofia's Mladost Borough Mayor Kukurin Claims He Was Offered BGN 300,000 Bribe Over Kindergarten Renovation Contract

Ivaylo Kukurin, mayor of Sofia’s Mladost borough, told bTV on Sunday that he was offered a bribe of BGN 300,000 in connection with a public procurement contract worth nearly BGN 5 million for the renovation of a kindergarten. The offer allegedly came after he refused to sign a protocol that had not been approved by his designated committee.

Kukurin linked the attempted bribe to individuals now under arrest and said the proposal followed an offer of outside “expert support” for his administration—support he now believes was politically motivated.

Georgi Todorov, mayor of Lyulin borough, shared similar experience. He said that in February his deputy mayor Rositsa Pandova, whom he described as a close family friend of Continue the Change (CC) former co-leader Kiril Petkov, offered to split BGN 5,000 with him over a contract tied to a company close to Vanina Vetsina. After rejecting the proposal and informing the party leadership, Todorov later learned that Pandova was nominated for the board of a municipal hospital. “That was a major red flag,” he said.

Earlier this week Todorov and Kukurin, as well as Dimitar Shalafov, a municipal councilor in the Sofia Municipal Council (SMC), have testified before investigative authorities regarding corruption practices in the two districts, according to posts on their social media profiles. At a press conference, the two district mayors, as well as Shalafov, who is a municipal councilor and co-chair of the CC-DB group in SMC, and Dragomir Ivanov, a municipal councilor from the same group, announced they are leaving CC, citing pressure from the party as the reason.