Mayor of Gorna Oryahovitsa resigns after three-year legal battle
Nikolay Rashkov steps down over a conflict of interest found by the former anti-corruption commission. No by-election will be held.
Archive image · Photo: Ximonic, Simo Räsänen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5 (cropped and resized)
The mayor of the northern Bulgarian town of Gorna Oryahovitsa, Nikolay Rashkov, submitted his resignation on Tuesday, handing it in person to the chair of the municipal election commission, Ivan Iliev. It follows a three-year dispute over a conflict of interest established by the anti-corruption commission KPK, which has since been abolished. The KPK fined him and banned him from public office for one year. The municipal election commission, however, refused to remove him from office, and the case went to court.
The case concerns the sale of municipal property in 2023 under his predecessor. According to the Focus agency, the company Mirvana, which Rashkov managed, won the auction, while the contract and payments followed after he had already been elected mayor. 'I refuse to keep fighting these court battles; I have decided to withdraw with honour and dignity,' Rashkov wrote. Because less than a year of the term remains, there will be no by-election; the municipal council will pick a successor. Focus says this saves more than 400,000 euros.