Bulgaria will hold its annual mayor’s popularity contest

And this year, it will coincide with the local elections campaign

Residents living in 261 out of all 265 municipalities in Bulgaria will once again get the chance to vote online and evaluate the work done by their mayors. This year, however, there’s a twist since the contest, called “Mayor of the Year” will coincide with the running campaign for the country’s local elections, set to take place on 31 October.

That’s why, in this year’s competition, residents will get the chance to evaluate the mayors’ overall work for the 2019-2023 term. An exception is made for four municipalities - Razlog, Yakoruda, Nova Zagora and Nikola Kozlevo. The reason is that the current mayors were elected later in the term or hold the position temporarily. 

People can cast their online votes from 1 to 14 September to determine how the mayors have performed in several categories:

• Mayor of the year;
• Mayor of the citizens;
• Smart cities;
• Green municipality;
• Urban environment;
• Tourism and culture;
• Sports and youth policies.

Each person can only cast one vote for one of the last five categories, and one vote each for the first two categories.

Details of the competition

Registration for voting on the Kmetnagodinata.bg platform is done through a Facebook account, a Google account or another email, in the latter case the vote must be confirmed via the specified email.

There will be three winners in each category - for a small, medium and large municipality, according to population. Small municipalities - with a population of up to 20,000 inhabitants; medium municipalities - with a population of 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants; and large municipalities - with a population of more than 50,000 inhabitants. 

The winners will be announced at the "Mayor of the Year" ceremony, which will be held on 19 September 2023 in Sofia. The ceremony will also be broadcast on BNT 1 and BNT 4 on 21 September at 9:00 p.m.

TheMayor.EU is a media partner of the event.