Bulgaria’s April elections: Caretaker PM warns of scheme to buy votes with counterfeit euro
Ahead of the April 19 parliamentary elections, a scheme to buy votes using counterfeit euro banknotes is being prepared, caretaker Prime Minister Andrei Gyurov told a news conference on April 15.
Gyurov was speaking at the final news conference by the coordination council on the elections before the April 19 vote.
“That is, they not only want to distort the vote of Bulgarian citizens, but they also want to directly deceive them,” Gyurov said.
“It is up to us to catch them, and it is up to Bulgarian citizens to make these efforts of the buyers meaningless with their vote on Sunday, because high voter turnout is actually stronger than all criminal schemes,” he said.
“We have shown that the state is more organised than the vote traders.”
Gyurov said that the result was a million euro confiscated, with police operations to continue in the final days before the elections.
“There is no hiding place, no drawer, no money belt or candidate list that can hide those who want to distort and taint the vote of Bulgarian citizens and our future,” he said.
He outlined what he saw as successes by the interim administration ahead of the vote.
“First, we put an end to dark rooms and dark methods of vote control. On Sunday, for the first time, voting will be done with screens,” he said.
“The screens preserve the secrecy of the vote, but they put an end to taking pictures, putting an end to taking ballots out of pockets and using any improvised means to hit the correct square on the ballot.”
Gyurov said that a step had been taken towards true accessibility.
“We developed an app for people with visual impairments. This way, they will be able to hear the listings in their section and make an informed and complete choice.”
Vanya Nusheva, adviser to the caretaker Prime Minister on the election process, told the news conference that the number of pre-trial proceedings initiated for election crimes is five times higher than in the previous parliamentary elections.
Deputy Interior Minister Ivan Anchev said that up to April 15, a total of 1743 reports from the public had been received, compared with 479 four days before the October 2024 parliamentary elections.
The total number of criminal proceedings initiated is 461 as of today, compared to 100 two years ago. The number of people arrested as of today is 288, in the previous period 56.”
Interior Ministry chief secretary Georgi Kandev said that vote buyers will be targeted after the elections as well.
“So people are really starting to trust us. Society places hopes on us and we have to justify that,” Kandev said.
(Archive photo: Interior Ministry)
