Bulgarian prosecutors investigating 20 cases of alleged electoral fraud
Bulgarian prosecutors were working on 20 investigations of alleged electoral fraud, the country’s Deputy Interior Minister Filip Gounev said on May 8, as quoted by television station bTV.
Of those, five were at the indictment stage, while the rest were against unknown perpetrators – under Bulgarian law, these are cases in which there is sufficient grounds to suspect foul play, but not enough evidence to indict.
Prosecutors have already closed 22 probes in which they did not find sufficient evidence that the law was breached. In total, the Interior Ministry had received 112 complaints and tip-offs alleging violations of the electoral laws as of May 7, the report said.
Gounev said that 408 police officers declared some sort of relationship with local election officials or MP nominees. Of these, 340 will be rotated to avoid conflict of interest. These are just a small part of the 3300 police officers that will be rotated and on duty outside their usual jurisdictions, affecting mainly in small villages.
In total, 14 445 law enforcement staff will be on duty on May 11 (the traditional “day of contemplation” before election day, when campaigning is forbidden) and May 12, national police commissioner Angel Antonov was quoted as saying.
(Photo: foxumon/sxc.hu)
