Bulgaria’s European elections: Woman given suspended sentence for vote-buying
The District Court in the north-eastern Bulgarian town of Turgovishte has handed down a sentence of 10 months in prison, suspended for three years, to a 51-year-old woman for vote-buying in the country’s May 2019 European Parliament elections.
The sentence was pronounced following a plea bargain between the accused and the District Prosecutor’s Office, according to a June 3 statement by Bulgaria’s Prosecutor’s Office.
The fast-track trial proceedings were initiated on May 21 – five days before Bulgaria’s European Parliament elections – after it was established that the woman, whose full name was not given in the statement, offered a resident and gave three other women 30 leva (about 15 euro) to vote for a particular political party.
The political party was not named in the Prosecutor’s Office statement.
The agreement is final and enters into force immediately, the statement said.
The Turgovishte Regional Prosecutor’s Office is also carrying out another pre-trial proceeding against a woman, named as Natalia I, in connection with alleged vote-buying, the Prosecutor’s Office said.
