The complete chaos caused by the on-line registration for kindergartens in Sofia has resulted only in the sacking of a city hall director, but not the deputy mayor in charge of education, Iordanka Fandukova.

The website that was to be used for registration, which cost 400 000 leva to develop, never went on-line because of the big number of users trying to register. On February 11 2008, Fandukova said someone had to take the responsibility for the fiasco and handed in her resignation.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov, however, decided not to accept her resignation, dismissing instead the head of the municipal education direction, Kamen Iordanov, mediapool.bg said.

Sofia's education inspectorate has launched an investigation of the on-line registration fiasco, which revealed that Iordanov was to blame. According to a Sofia city hall media statement, Borissov did not accept Fandukova's resignation because she was not directly in charge of the website's development.

A number of non-governmental organisations also opposed Fandukova's resignation and their objections were published on the Sofia city hall website. Bulgarian teachers' trade union, the union of secondary school directors and the Sofia organisation of the employers in the education sector all defended Fandukova.

The opposition political groups in the Sofia municipal council, those of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, however, said that after three years in office, Fandukova was to blame for the lack of places in the kindergartens in Sofia, which led to the mad rush with the website.