Newly formed centrist party Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB) expected to receive majority of the votes in the elections for members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on May 20, CEDB leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov said.

Polls showed that CEDB, which was officially founded in December 2006, was the second most popular party in the country, mediapool.bg said.

Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was still in the leads for the elections, sociologists said.

Tsvetanov said that his party would compete for the votes, unlike other parties which take part in the elections following the Olympics principle that participation itself was more important than winning.

The main goal of CEDB is to win at least five seats in the European Parliament.

Tsvetanov said that he was worried a conspiracy might be put in action against CEDB.

Members of CEDB’s youth organisation patrolled in front of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) to prevent eventual attempts of other organisation to register for the elections with the same name.

CEDB presented CEC 20 016 signatures in support of the party’s electoral application on March 26 2007. Any party which plans to take part in the elections independently has to present to CEC at least 15 000 signatures.