Nearly 30 policemen searched the headquarters of Order, Rule of Law and Justice’s candidate for mayor in Varna, Vesselin Mareshki.

Mareshki ranked second in the first round of the municipal elections on October 28 2007, mediapool.bg said.

Police seized documents from the headquarters.

According to unconfirmed information, the police operation was scheduled for a moment, when a group of people was heading to Mareshki’s headquarters to receive money for voting for him.

Most of the people told the police that they were going to a dentist, despite the fact that there was no dentist’s cabinet in the building, mediapol.bg said.

Regional police direction press centre said that policemen seized the ID cards of everyone in Mareshki’s headquarters. Police would verify whether they voted for Mareshki on October 28. They were all taken to the police office for interrogation.

Mareshki was absent during the search of his headquarters.

He received 15 991 or 13.18 per cent of the votes in Varna and ranked ahead of the rightist parties’ nomination Dimo Gyaurov and Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria’s candidate Svilen Kraichev. Bulgarian Socialist Party nominee Kiril Iordanov was re-elected.

A check of the municipal election commission in Varna showed that on the day of the elections, Mareshki supporters had a list of voters with their personal identification numbers, where those those who had voted were marked. The October 31 police operation was decided on after the commission check, mediapoool.bg reported.

After the elections, Mareshki himself demanded cancellation of the elections in Varna because of vote-buying.