DPS - New Beginning Leads with Over 1 Million Leva in Election Campaign Spending in Bulgaria

The recent reports published by the National Audit Office reveal that the most expensive election campaign in the early parliamentary elections held on October 27 was conducted by "DPS - New Beginning." The campaign costs for the political formation led by Delyan Peevski exceeded 1,160,000 leva, making it the only campaign to surpass the one-million-leva mark. Despite the high expenses, the funds raised for the campaign surpassed 1.2 million leva, with the entirety of the funding originating from donations. Notably, Peevski himself did not contribute financially to the campaign. The largest individual donation came from Hamdi Iliyazov, who contributed 200,000 leva on October 1.

In comparison, the campaign expenditure of the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (APS), associated with Ahmed Dogan, was significantly lower, amounting to 95,722.41 leva. Meanwhile, Kostadin Kostadinov's "Revival" party came close to matching DPS - New Beginning in terms of spending, with campaign costs reaching 996,540.5 leva. The funding for Revival came from numerous smaller donations, many of which were 10,000 leva each, but Kostadinov himself did not contribute any personal funds to the campaign.

GERB allocated slightly over 900,000 leva for their election campaign, which was fully financed through their own resources. Other notable campaign expenditures included 758,000 leva spent by "There Is Such a People" (TISP) and nearly 707,000 leva used by the BSP - United Left.

The MECH party reported expenses of 305,000 leva, partially funded through a party subsidy received from a previous election. On the other hand, the political formation "Greatness" spent approximately 350,000 leva on their campaign. Their funding reportedly came from the state subsidy and "other...