Ministry of Interior launched police operation against vote buying

Ministry of Interior on July 1 started an operation against vote buying across the country. Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Boyko Rashkov said the Ministry of Interior would do everything possible to ensure fair elections..

The operation began today, July 1 and will continue until election day - July 11.

"Certain groups, including representatives of political parties, will try to win the vote not in accordance with the law," the caretaker minister said. According to him, there are already nearly 100 signals for vote buying.

"We must take action against those who are preparing to distort the political picture in our country, to achieve unrealistic results on election day, not to properly and accurately take into account the vote of every Bulgarian voter. Vote buying is a crime under the Criminal Code, we will not put up with this ugly political practice of buying and selling votes," added Boyko Rashkov.

According to him, the launched police operation will not stop until the election day. It includes the maximum police force available to the Ministry of Interior.

"All persons who are accused of preparing and carrying out such activities will be subjected to legal procedures and pre-trial proceedings will be instituted. In Pleven region, if 300 voters announced that they would vote, in the end they turned out to be 1,000. In Kyustendil, a former Minister of Interior held a meeting with a former district governor and another one on sick leave, at which they discussed how to attract 15,000 Macedonians with Bulgarian citizenship to vote in our country," said Boyko Rashkov.

According to him, "such a form of electoral tourism is held in many places, where it is planned in the days before the elections to concentrate a large number of Bulgarian citizens at the same address."

"In a village in Blagoevgrad region, thousands suddenly appear at the same address, who are registered there, we expect this to multiply in other areas as well," the caretaker minister stressed, noting that domestic election tourism should be stopped.

"We have data that in the past, a famous politician organised the purchase of votes in Vratsa, Montana and Vidin. They showed, in the past elections, a big result in this regard. It is about buying votes for a party of a certain ethnic group." said Boyko Rashkov.

The launched police operation on the territory of the whole country is carried out with the participation of employees of the General Directorate "Gendarmerie, Specialized Operations and Fight against Terrorism", as well as with representatives of the security and criminal police, Chief Commissioner Stanimir Stanev, Director of the General Directorate of the National Police, told a briefing on July 1.

Commissioner Stanev added that work is underway to identify and search for persons declared as nationally and internationally wanted.

He announced two cases that were registered in the regional administration of the Ministry of Interior in the city of Bourgas. One is that during a search of a home, a mobile phone was found, on which 31 photos of ID cards were found. Communication was detected with a person who promised others that if they voted for a certain political party they would receive BGN 80 per vote and if a whole family voted for that party they would receive a bonus of BGN 20. According to information from the Ministry of Interior in Bourgas, the person was detained.

The second case is from “Komluka” residential quarter in Bourgas. After a search of persons who had been identified as debtors to certain moneylenders, information was received that the persons in question had been promised that their debts would be forgiven if they vote for a particular political party.

images by BGNES

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