One of Bulgaria’s most prestigious competitions “Man of the Year” officially began with 500 journalists from all over the country receiving questionnaires to nominate their top three choices for 2008.

This year the competition is organized by Darik radio, which acquired the trademark rights from the pervious owner – the “Club M” magazine.

The nominations have a deadline of September 22, when the initial count will begin. The three finalists will be announced on October 6.

On the same date – October 6, the official site of the competition – manoftheyear.bg, is also scheduled for launching.

The top finalist will be chosen by the site’s visitors. The site is also going to be accessible through the other DarikWeb internet pages – Dariknews, Gong, Lev, Log, Zar.bg. Manoftheyear.bg will include the competition’s history with all previous title winners and information about the women’s competition “Miss Charm.”

The top finalist will be announced in December at the traditional official ceremony. “Johnnie Walker” is again an official sponsor of the event.

Until now the title has been won by Zhelio Zhelev (1990 Рё 1992), Philip Dimitrov (1991), Emil Kostadinov (1993), Hristo Stoychkov (1994), Stephan Sofyanski (1995), Petar Stoyanov (1996 Рё 1997), Ivan Kostov (1998), Kiril Voynov (1999), Tanyo Kiryakov (2000), Slavi Trifonov (2001), Boyko Borisov (2002 Рё 2006), Georgi Parvanov (2003), Iordan Yovchev (2004), Tsonko Tsonev and Veselin Topalov ( 2005).

According to the competition’s rules, Zhelio Zhelev, Petar Stoyanov and Boyko Borisob are ineligible to participate because they have already won the title twice.