Bulgaria’s Cabinet appoints new regional governors of Plovdiv, Haskovo
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s Cabinet, at a scheduled meeting on November 6, appointed new regional governors in Plovdiv and Haskovo after the predecessors were elected mayors of their districts’ capital cities.
In Plovdiv, Dani Kanazireva, leader of the Union for Plovdiv, has been appointed to succeed Zdravko Dimitrov as regional governor after he won a second-round victory on November 3 in the mayoral elections on the ticket of Borissov’s GERB party.
Kanazireva has a degree in law from Plovdiv University Paisii Hilendarski, majoring in British law and the law of the EU. She holds a doctorate in constitutional law.
She is a former member of GERB but was expelled in 2010, going on to form the Union for Plovdiv, for which she was its mayoral candidate in 2011, 2015 and 2019.
Kanazireva made headlines after the October 27 2019 mayoral elections when exit polls erroneously showed her as having run second. Final results showed her as having run third at the first round. In the city council elections, the Union for Plovdiv won five out of 51 seats and is expected to support GERB, which has the largest share of seats but insufficient to govern alone.
In Haskovo, Dr Stefka Stefanova, until now deputy regional governor, has been appointed to succeed Stanislav Dechev as regional governor after he won a first-round victory on a GERB ticket to become mayor of Haskovo.
Stefanova has a degree in veterinary medicine and is president of the Haskovo branch of the Bulgarian Veterinary Union. She previously was a two-term municipal councillor in Harmanli, her place of birth.
(Main photo: Dani Kanazireva)
