Ministry of Interior arrested 36 people for vote buying

As at 14:00, the Ministry of Interior had received 259 reports of vote-buying. Nine reports were received within one hour. Seventy pre-trial proceedings were initiated and 36 people were detained, caretaker Minister of Interior, Atanas Ilkov, told a briefing on October 18. The Ministry of Interior presented an update on the results of the actions taken by the Ministry of Interior against crimes related to the political rights of citizens.

During raids targeting vote-buying, investigators also came across illegal logging in Smolyan and Kardzhali.

"Yesterday they found trucks illegally acquiring wood in Smolyan and Kardzhali, they are out of order, out of service. This wood will most likely be given to people in exchange for votes for a particular political force. In the other cases, colleagues seized cash, lists, documents and evidence related to violations of the Electoral Code," explained caretaker Minister of Interior Atanas Ilkov.

Police data showed that citizens were more active and filed more reports about vote trading in comparison with the previous elections in the summer. Within half an hour, while the briefing was going on, two signals were submitted.

"There are now 261 alerts compared to 184 in the previous election, so citizen activity has increased, which is good to show intolerance to vote buying," he said.