site.btaUPDATED Campaign Highlights: Sept. 12

Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov said the northeastern town of Dobrich that his party will make sure it gets the Regional Development Ministry after the October 2 snap elections. Allocating the Ministry [in the previous Cabinet] to There Is Such a People was a mistake, he said, adding that much effort was put into not allowing money to be stolen from that particular Ministry. Petkov said there is enough money in the State, but around BGN 4 billion are stolen each year. "We only need BGN 1.2 billion in order to double people's pensions and if the formation manages to complete what was started seven months ago, the minimum monthly pension can be increased to BGN 900 within four years," he said. According to Petkov, their first step will be to appoint former interior minister Boyko Rashkov as head of the anti-corruption commission.

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Rise Up Bulgaria leader Maya Manolova said that her party will insist on not paying for water utilities in Lovech (North-central) Bulgaria after the elections. She recalled her party's campaign "Don't Pay". "We want to say that it is wrong for people to pay when they're not getting a quality service. The water utility situation in Lovech is drastic, as its price went up 35%," she said, adding that her party had objected to the increase, which she described as "socially unbearable". Manolova said that her party will table a bill for repealing payments of water, heating and electricity, until the necessary reforms are conducted and will demand that all citizens are provided with 3 cu m of water at a price of BGN 2.

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GERB leader Boyko Borissov said in the coastal town of Pomorie that it is up to President Rumen Radev to ensure fair elections. The elections have the potential to be fair, he said, expressing hope that the caretaker government will do a good job in that regard. Borissov said that Bulgaria is a large electricity producer and it would be heinous to talk about expensive electricity in Bulgaria. Thirty days after the previous government left office, the price of fuel has dropped by 30%, given that the price per barrel has remained unchanged, Borissov said. "They have worked to the detriment of the Bulgarian people," he added. Since Continue the Change are gone, things in the country are returning back to normal and the chaos is starting to disappear, he said.

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Corruption is the main instrument through which the business and civil relations are stifled, said Democratic Bulgaria Alliance co-leader Atanas Atanassov in Kyustendil. The upcoming battle is between the reformist forces on the one hand and the restoration forces headed by GERB.

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Speaking in Varna on Monday Bulgarian Social Democracy - Euro-Left leader Alexander Tomov said that his party has 15 strategic projects whose implementation will see the incomes of Bulgarians go up. One of the projects aims to develop four of the river ports on the Danube which will give impetus to the economic development of Northern Bulgaria. The party also prioritizes Varna Port, the construction of a modern terminal and repair of the railway link with Ruse.

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The sequence of the campaign highlights featured in this report follows the ballot numbers of the 29 contestants in the October 2 snap parliamentary elections.