The Caretaker Minister of Interior Requested the Resignation of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior, Miroslav Rashkov

At its first regular meeting on February 23, the caretaker government approved the budget for the upcoming early parliamentary elections scheduled for 19 April. The current estimate stands at €65 million. Caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov stated that the elections represent an investment in the trust between the public and institutions.

The caretaker Cabinet also supported the request of caretaker Minister of Interior, Emil Dechev, to replace the Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Miroslav Rashkov.

Andrey Gyurov, caretaker Prime Minister: These €65 million are not for the authorities or the political parties. They are for the process – for the remuneration of members of the electoral commissions, the people who will be responsible for counting votes; for the Central Election Commission’s information campaign and the training of the commissions' members, because the vote cannot be entrusted to those who are unprepared or unable to distinguish a valid ballot from an invalid one; for the Ministry of Interior, because in recent years we have seen that order and compliance on election day cannot be taken for granted; for video monitoring, because at the last elections, without the cameras, an entire party would have been excluded from the Bulgarian Parliament; for updating the voter lists, because in the end someone might again be 300 votes short, and there should be no ‘ghost voters’ to whom they can be attributed; and, last but not least, to open polling stations abroad, however inconvenient that may be for some.”

Hasan Ademov, Caretaker Minister of Labour and Social Policy:
“At the entry point of the system, regional directorates for social assistance compile lists and issue authorisations within the framework of social services, where the primary responsibility lies with local authorities. We are observing practices that are in the interests of corporate voting. For this reason, I repeat, we will be absolutely uncompromising and will under no circumstances allow the social system to be used for election campaigning.”