Bulgaria | Maya Manolova takes office as national ombudsman

On 20 October 2015 Maya Manolova assumed office as the new national Ombudsman of Bulgaria. Ms Manolova, a former Member of Parliament with the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was elected as the new Ombudsman at the end of July 2015 and will follow former Ombudsman Konstantin Penchev.

Ombudsman Manolova studied history in Moscow and economy and law at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, where she specialised in social management. She became a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) in 1989 and was elected a member of the Bulgarian Parliament in 2005.

Ms Manolova will be the third consecutive Ombudsman of Bulgaria. In her inaugural speech she acknowledged that the institution had significantly matured in the past ten years thanks to the work of her predecessors, Mr Ganev, who laid the foundations of the institution, and Mr Penchev, who develop it and gave it solidity, relevance and integrity. She thanked her predecessors on behalf of all Bulgarian citizens, which the Office of the Ombudsman helped over the years.