The Municipal Election Commission in Silistra has refused to terminate the mandate of Iliana Miteva, a municipal councillor from the “Left” coalition.
The case arose after data on councillors’ absences in 2025 were published in an investigation by “Za Istinata” and “Mesten Reporter”. Unhappy with the information, Miteva attempted to rebut it from the floor of the Municipal Council, invoking a “right of reply” procedure that does not exist under the council’s rules.
The ensuing review of the records found that Miteva had missed three consecutive meetings of the Municipal Council for a legitimate reason without informing the council chairman in writing.
The Local Self-Government and Local Administration Act, as well as the rules governing the Silistra Municipal Council, are explicit in such cases:
“The mandate of a municipal councillor shall be terminated early when, without having notified the chairman of the municipal council in writing of their failure to attend a council meeting for a legitimate reason – work commitments, absence from the country, illness and other reasons – the councillor fails to participate in three consecutive meetings or a total of five meetings of the municipal council during the year.”
In this case, the legal grounds for termination appeared to have been met. The reason given for the absences – illness – was legitimate, but no written notifications had been submitted to the council chairman.
The Municipal Election Commission, however, took a different view. Its position, recorded in the minutes of the meeting, did not dispute that the legal requirements had been met, but said:
“The members of the Municipal Election Commission agreed that terminating the mandate of the municipal councillor would be an excessive and severe sanction, given the circumstances and arguments discussed by the Silistra Municipal Election Commission in relation to notification No 228-ЕL of 10 March 2026 from the chairman of the Silistra Municipal Council and the objection submitted by Iliana Miteva.”
Having considered the reasons for Miteva’s absence from the three consecutive council meetings, the commission concluded that there were objective reasons for failing to comply with the requirement that the notification be made in writing. Once her medical certificates had been submitted to the municipality’s accounting department, the written-notification requirement, it said, had become merely formal.
The commission also accepted Miteva’s claim that she had notified the council chairman by telephone that she would be unable to attend all three meetings.
According to the commission, the procedure laid down in the Local Self-Government and Local Administration Act is intended as a notification mechanism rather than a permission regime. In this case, priority should therefore be given to the reasons for the three consecutive absences – health problems and uninterrupted sick leave over the relevant period.
Questions over the commission’s impartiality
The legal reasoning and supporting opinions in the case were prepared by the chair of the Silistra Municipal Election Commission, Mariana Chobanova.
Chobanova is also the legal adviser to the Municipal Council and provides councillors with legal advice concerning their duties. The documents submitted to the commission also included minutes from the council’s Ethics Commission, which had been asked to consider Miteva’s use of the alleged “right of reply” to attack the media that had reported on councillors’ absences.
The minutes show that the Ethics Commission did not reach a specific conclusion on whether Miteva had breached the council’s code of ethics. Nevertheless, the document was included by the election commission chair in support of the councillor’s position.
Questions have also been raised because some members of the Ethics Commission are wives or partners of municipal councillors about whose absences information had been published.
Possible political solidarity
Miteva is a member of the “Left” coalition group in the Silistra Municipal Council. The group is led by local businessman and major employer Stoil Stoychev, with Miteva, who is a close associate of Stoychev.
Stoychev’s group plays an important role in the political balance of the Silistra council, which may have implications for the position taken by other political forces.
All political representatives on the Municipal Election Commission voted against terminating Miteva’s mandate.
An early termination could also have changed the political balance in Silistra. Miteva could have been replaced by lawyer Venцislav Marinov, who was on the “Left” coalition list in the 2023 local elections but later joined the Velichie party.
A proposed change – and a counterproposal
One consequence of the reports on councillors’ absences has been a proposed overhaul of the Silistra Municipal Council’s rules.
The draft amendments published for public consultation would establish a public register of councillors’ absences, including the reasons for missing meetings and any deductions from their remuneration.
Another major change would link councillors’ remuneration to attendance at committee meetings. As “Za Istinata” has previously reported, the proposal prompted some councillors to submit applications to join the maximum number of standing committees allowed under the existing rules, apparently to avoid losing part of their remuneration, which is around €500.
During the public consultation period, however, Stoil Stoychev, a councillor from the “Left” group, submitted his own proposal calling for the entire package of amendments to be rejected.
Instead, he proposes changes that would largely preserve the existing system while reducing the number of standing committees from eight to five and limiting councillors to membership of a single committee rather than the current maximum of three.
Stoychev provided no reasons for his proposals. He received support from fellow councillor Yordan Stoyanov, who added a proposal to limit the number of members of each committee to seven.
The next question is whether the Silistra Municipal Council will ultimately follow Stoychev’s proposals when the amendments are put to a vote.
