Mayors will be able to lead political parties, Parliament decided on December 4 2008 after MPs voted on first reading amendments to the Local Self Government and Local Administration Act, Bulgarian news agency Focus reported.

When approved on second reading this amendment will allow Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov to officially head the biggest party in opposition, the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (abbreviated as GERB in Bulgarian).

Borissov founded the party in 2006 after his election as Sofia mayor but, because of the restriction in the law, he was not able to lead it, leaving the party leadership to his close associate Tsvetan Tsvetanov. Since then, Borissov has been refered in Bulgarian media as the informal leader of GERB, although he has been acting as the true party leader.

Since 2006, Borissov hs been campaigning for lifting the restriction, claiming that it made no sense for mayors not to be allowed to be party leaders since such a resatriction does not apply for prime ministers.

His problem however has been that GERB has only one MP in Parliament, which was why it took so long for Parliament to deal with the issue. The amendment voted on December 4 2008 was put forward by Maria Kapon, leader of the small right-wing party in opposition Unified Peoples Party.      

The restriction on mayors was adopted in the times of the last right-wing government of Ivan Kostov and the Union of Democratic Forces (1997/2001). It was one of the results of the internal struggles of the UDF, which led to the split of the party. Back then, one of Kostov's opponents was Stefan Sofiyanski, then mayor of Sofia, who went on forming his own party, the Union of Free Democrats. The restriction was seen as a blow against Sofiyanski's future as a political leader.