IF God was a liberal, there would not have been Ten Commandments, but Ten Rational Ideas.

Should you be offended by this apparent blasphemy and start gathering faggots to burn me at the stake, those are not my words. They were spoken by Sofia mayoral candidate Milen Velchev at the close of a lecture at Sofia University as part of his campaign.

Now, I am by no means advocating that Velchev should be consigned to the inferno. Whatever his virtues when he was finance minister, his personality is generally viewed as somewhat dry. So dry that, lashed to the stake, he would go up like a torch.

It is the eve of the mayoral elections, and therefore time to reflect on how the candidates have done. And time, too, to see whether, liberals or not, they have - either individually or collectively - come up with 10 rational ideas.

Back to Velchev. I thought that the way his campaign has been run has been as close to a model of the electoral arts as we are likely to see in Bulgaria. Given that he is somewhat dour, it was wise that his handlers chose to portray him as such, rather than Mister Congeniality. His posters, beneath his stern gaze, inform us that "Sofia needs serious work", and with an expression like that, Velchev appears to be the person for the job. Such a campaign makes up for his television advert, one of the worst I have seen in any of the countries in which I have covered election campaigns.

For those who missed it, the advert opens with Velchev leafing through what appears to be a freshly-purchased coffee table book about the history of Sofia. First wrong message: it looks as if the candidate has to quickly bone up on the city he hopes to lead. This is intercut with scenes of Velchev strolling the uncannily empty streets of Sofia in the company of his fellow former Cabinet ministers (with the exception of Meglena Kouneva, who he appears to be asking how she got to keep her job). Second wrong message: why does this man keep company only with political has-beens?

On to the others, then, and an account of the quest for Ten Rational Ideas.

Boiko Borissov, said to be leading in the polls, has been a fount of them. The former Interior Ministry chief secretary, standing as an independent (a fact that deprives him of the television time to which candidates nominated by parties represented in Parliament are entitled by law), has been on the go non-stop. Deprived of television coverage, perhaps - as Ataka did - he will surface electorally at the last minute, like a sleek black-clad submarine at the sea-gates of the citadel.

On October 14, Borissov promised video cameras to film cars driving in the lanes reserved for buses. The same day, he said that he wanted the areas around schools to be guarded by police. Six days later, he said that if anyone wanted to buy an estate from the municipality, the buyer would also have to repair the neighbouring buildings' facades, the pavement, the street, and to set up "fashionable" (please ask him, not me, what that means) lights.

We were given some insight into the Inner Borissov when he said on October 22 that he had learned from Todor Zhivkov, the communist dictator that Borissov served as a bodyguard, to "seek the balance". Borissov let slip this Zen nugget when asked by residents of the Obelya district "how he would cope with the Roma".

Lest there be any illusion that God has not been invoked in this campaign, none of the leading candidates has omitted a pitch for help from above. On St Petka's Day, Borissov went to the St Petka Monastery near his birthplace in Bankya, Velchev made a pilgrimage with his family to Rila Monastery, right-wing candidate Minko Gerdjikov was blessed in a church in Chepintsi, and the Bulgarian Socialist Party's Tatyana Doncheva went to St Petka in Sofia.

Doncheva, too, has been hyperactive. Like Borissov and Velchev, her campaign has included a stop at a disco, though not at the same time. Generally making fewer promises than other candidates, she pledged to students at New Bulgarian University to combat corruption "in the way that medics combat cancer".

In an October 22 interview with Duma, a newspaper closely associated with her party, Doncheva said, "Let us be guided by a desire to make Sofia a better place to live in, and not by privatisation aspirations seeking to turn every empty plot into a construction site".

Other candidates have not been left standing, however, in the promises department.

Gerdjikov promised to organise referendums on the most acute problems of the capital city. Oh goody, in a country where voter turnout is low already. He also went hiking on Vitosha Mountain. "Sofians should feel closer to the mountain," he said, urging them not to litter. He promised taxi drivers a special telephone line to report violations of road traffic rules. Perhaps stealing a march on Borissov's determined targeting of children during his campaign, Gerdjikov promised to open more kindergartens.

At the other end of the age spectrum, Velchev proposed discounts for the elderly on public transport at certain times of day.

Independent candidate Ventseslav Dimitrov wants the municipality to approve a special bill on the upkeep of cemeteries. Given the time-honoured tradition of the dead turning out to vote, there may be some political vested interest in this.

Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria candidate Svetoslav Gavriiski ceremonially planted 10 oaks. "The oak is a symbol of wisdom," he said, helpfully. Presumably this was a reference to the meaning of the name of Sofia ("wisdom" in Greek), but the notion of associating wisdom with politics also seems a refreshing one.

If you have found 10 rational ideas in all of this, congratulations.

If, like me, you are a foreigner and therefore not entitled to vote in the October 29 mayoral elections, you need not feel alone. Whatever the surfeit of ideas rational or otherwise, the polls tell us that more than half of Sofia's electorate does not intend going to vote.

It seems that for many, the most rational idea is, "Thou Shalt Not Vote".