Bulgarian pop singer Miroslav Kostadinov will represent Bulgaria at the 2010 Eurovision song contest, public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television, which organises the Bulgarian qualifying competition and broadcasts the final event, said on October 18.

Eager to avoid the controversy that dogged the local qualifying event on all but one occasion, BNT changed the rules so that the Bulgarian representative is no longer chosen following a text vote. Every year, critics say that the text vote is manipulated and rigged in the favour of one competitor.

Instead, this year the nominee was picked by a committee of 51 composers, song-writers and musicians.

Kostadinov, usually referred to as Miro of Karizma, after the popular duet he was a part of, was voted by 10 of the committee's members. Last year's runner-up, Polya Genova, was second with seven votes.

BNT will next produce and release five songs for Miro, with viewers voting in with text messages to pick the winning song that will represent Bulgaria at the 2010 Eurovision contest in Norway.

BNT justified the change by saying that its attempts to find the "most democratic" way to designate a winner were "misunderstood and caused a lot of controversy".

A row marked Bulgaria's very first Eurovision campaign, when pop quartet Kaffe were accused of rigging the anonymous vote. Last year's campaign produced an equally bitter row when Krassimir Avramov won the qualification contest, but promptly exited at the semi-final stage.