In Ruse, Pencho Milkov, nominated by the local coalition “BSP for Bulgaria,” won convincingly. In the runoff on Sunday, he faced Ivan Ivanov, the director of the university hospital, nominated by GERB.
Official data from the Central Election Commission shows that in the second round, Milkov received 63% support, but with record-low voter turnout. Thus, with disputed legitimacy, he will continue to hold the mayoral position for a second consecutive term. In 2019, BSP also won the runoff with a convincing lead against the then-GERB candidate.
In the smaller municipalities and villages in the region, GERB and DPS also maintain the influence they had. GERB has its mayors in 6 out of a total of 8 municipalities in the region. The “capital of phone scams,” Vetovo, once again has a mayor from DPS. Only in Ruse does BSP win.
The next challenge for Pencho Milkov is whether he will be able to secure a majority in the local municipal council. It is likely that this majority will center around the winning BSP, which has 12 councilors. They are expected to receive support from the six representatives of “Bulgarian Rise” and “Vazrazhdane.” On the other side is GERB with 9 councilors, who will have the definite backing of four from the local coalition “Bulgaria of the Regions” and three from SDS. The seven representatives from the coalition “Continuing the Change-Democratic Bulgaria” will play a key role in tipping the scales toward one side or the other. Whether we will see the already familiar “assembly” at the local level, similar to what we see at the national level, remains to be seen.
Three Questions to Solve for the New-Old Mayor
As “Za Istinata” has previously reported, the residents of the riverside city have one main issue. The dirty air has not been cleaned up, despite promises made four years ago by Pencho Milkov. At that time, he stated that “the mayor of Ruse cannot clean the air alone,” emphasizing the need for assistance from the state.
For this reason, during his term, he frequently sent letters to the Ministry of Environment and Water. A Public Council on the Environment was also established at the municipal level. This council includes citizens and representatives of non-governmental organizations and aims to address issues related to maintaining air quality. An inspection of the local heating plant was conducted, but the sporadic meetings of the council have been largely symbolic and have not led to concrete results.
The replaced stoves in 63 households in the municipality also failed to deliver the long-desired clean air. It turns out that over the past two years, even the days with elevated levels of fine particulate matter have increased compared to the levels from 2020 and 2021. The residents of Ruse continue to experience unpleasant odors, but the mobile measuring stations operated by the authorities almost never report deviations from the norms. The brief summary of the situation is that “the dogs bark, but the administration moves on.”
Now, the new hope for both the governing and the governed is that the planned changes to the Air Quality Act will address the issue of the inability of the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Water (RIOSV) to sanction enterprises that emit unpleasant odors. What these changes entail will be available soon on our website.
While there may be no improvement in air quality, the municipal administration has publicly boasted about visible results regarding Ruse’s transport connections with the world by air and land. However, these results have raised suspicions of corruption among media and non-governmental organizations.
The local airport and the newly constructed truck parking lot have become symbols of BSP’s governance in Ruse. As “Za Istinata” (For the truth) has reported multiple times, at the beginning of this year, the Ruse Municipality granted a ten-year free use right to a private company for hail suppression. The decision, supported by a full majority in the Municipal Council, was presented to the public as an attempt to revive civil aviation in the city. However, the signed contract does not provide for this. On the contrary, it obliges the company “Airport Ruse” to carry out a series of renovations and obtain a license. All of this is, however, essential for the investor itself to operate its aircraft for hail suppression there.
The revival of civil aviation would only be possible if an airline were found that would be willing to maintain regular flights to Sofia, Varna, and other destinations. Recently, there was interest from the Bulgarian carrier GulivAir, but it later became clear that it did not have enough aircraft to service its current routes.
The deal between the municipality and the private company was also marked by suspicious setbacks regarding the nearly completed procedure to declare the terminal building at the airport a cultural monument. It reached the point where a former interim minister once again delayed the building’s status, leaving a handwritten note on an official document in his last working day.
“Airport Ruse” has 18 more months to fulfill its obligations under the contract. Otherwise, the Ruse Municipality can reclaim ownership.
From the Sky to the Ground
Do you remember the scheme at the largest border checkpoint in our country, “Kapitan Andreevo,” where a service for sanitary control with guaranteed profits amounting to millions of leva was granted as a concession to a private company linked to shadowy figures? A similar scheme is functioning at the border near the Danube Bridge, where a company associated with Razmig Chakarayan operates a large buffer truck parking lot. The system is set up in such a way that trucks have no option to exit Bulgaria except by paying a fee to enter the parking lot.
These circumstances were revealed in investigations by the newspaper Kapital, and later the Anti-Corruption Fund (AKF) released a documentary series on the case. It describes how, under questionable circumstances, the municipality leased a municipal property of 114 decares to a private company linked to individuals known from the scandal at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint. The AKF points out that this raises suspicions of unfair competition and the imposition of a monopoly.
The Ruse Municipality reacted sharply to the revelations, stating that “resolving the long-standing problem of massive queues of heavy trucks is not a game, as suggested by AKF (the Anti-Corruption Fund).” They announced that they would seek their rights through legal means.
The construction of the buffer parking lot came after years of the city suffering from kilometer-long queues of trucks that hindered traffic. Therefore, in August 2022, the Ruse Municipality announced a competition for the selection of a contractor. However, this was criticized due to the short timelines and the vacation period in which it was announced.
There was transparency, but not for everyone and not always
In general, local authorities are much closer to the people than the national ones. Over the last four years, Mayor Pencho Milkov participated in almost all public events in the city. His proximity to the people, as he himself calls it, is one of the reasons Milkov received approval from Ruse citizens for a second term.
Since taking office, Milkov has published weekly reports on his work. Live broadcasts of the mayor were also streamed on the municipality’s social media. Even ironic nicknames like “Pencho Selfie” emerged due to the extensive publicity of his work as mayor on social networks.
Until recently, “Za Istinata” received answers to all the questions it submitted to the municipal press center. However, this has changed recently, and to date, they only respond to our inquiries under the Access to Public Information Act. For a democracy to function effectively, it is necessary for institutions to actively respond to journalists’ questions, even when they are critical of their actions.
One thing is certain after the local elections in Ruse Province: the people of Ruse chose more of the same.
