Azer Melikov, a political adviser to outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, was sacked as chairperson of the board at state-owned company Information Services, Dnevnik daily said on July 24 2009. The firm habitually wins the government tenders to count ballots in elections.

The board met late on July 23 and decided to order an internal audit, after which it will consider further action, Dnevnik quoted Stoyan Denchev, appointed as board director earlier this month, as saying.

The board decision comes a week after mass circulation daily 24 Chassa claimed that high-ranking state officials had been paid about 2000 leva a month as consultancy fees by the company. Denchev, the newspaper said, was among the recipients of such contracts in the past.

Melikov himself was thrust into the media spotlight in May, during the campaign for the June 7 European Parliament elections, when two opposition parties - the Blue Coalition and Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov’s party the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) - asked Stanishev to remove Melikov from the board of directors. The Finance Ministry holds 99.5 per cent of the shares in the company.

The reason for their request, the parties said at the time, was that there was a gross conflict of interest for Melikov, who was in a position to influence how Information Services counted the ballots.

Melikov's impartiality was questioned when cable channel Re:TV reported that he had registered a campaign website, boykostov.org, just days before the campaign started.

On this website, several clips with the message "If you vote for Boiko you will get Kostov" claimed that Borissov was joining forces with Ivan Kostov, leader of the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, part of the Blue Coalition. The clips were heavily used in the campaign for national Parliament elections in July.

Billboards for the campaign were paid for by the small-scale party Nova Zora and the website's registration was changed later to Ivan Petrov, one of the most common combinations of names in Bulgaria.

Bulgarian media have treated the allegation that Melikov was behind the campaign as fact, even though the domain registration process allows anyone to register a .org domain under any name, which means Melikov could have been the victim of someone’s plan to portray Stanishev and his Socialist party as the mastermind behind the anti-Borissov campaign.

Stanishev, however, avoided speaking on the issue, using the row to attack his opponents instead. On May 26, he said: "Someone is just looking for excuses, feeling their coming loss at the elections".

The Socialists were handed a heavy defeat at the general elections, finishing second to GERB, but winning only 40 seats to GERB's 116.