The winner of the tender for constructor of the Belene N-plant will be announced on October 31, minister of economy and energy, Roumen Ovcharov, stated before the public TV channel BNT yesterday. According to sources of the Sega newspaper, the winner which is widely rumoured to be the Russian Atomstryexport consortium should have been announced with a press conference yesterday but the evening before the selection committee received instructions from the cabinet of Minister Ovcharov that the announcement should be put on hold until October 31. There are two alternative explanations for the delay. According to some, the decision on Belene should not to interfere with the ongoing election campaign of President Purvanov who is running for a second mandate in the elections this Sunday, October 22. The President, who is former leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, keeps close ties with Russia and may be reportedly attacked for standing behind the choice. The other explanation is that the government wishes to finish negotiations on the gas transit agreement with Russia first and keeps Belene as a negotiating trump. Russia has recently put pressure on the Bulgarian government to revise a 10-year gas transit deal that expires in 2010. The gas transit agreement is currently rather advantageous for Bulgaria as the latter gets about half of its gas supplies at preferential prices (about 1/3 of the market price) in exchange for transiting gas to the neighbouring Turkey , Greece and Macedonia . Negotiations there are quite tough for the Bulgarian team, as Russia insists on paying cash for the transit and Bulgaria paying market prices for all the gas that it receives.