Caretaker Interior Minister fires more police chiefs ahead of parliamentary elections

Caretaker Interior Minister Emil Dechev has dismissed more chiefs of police directorates ahead of Bulgaria’s April 19 early parliamentary elections, according to a ministry statement on March 4.

Those dismissed include National Police Directorate head Zahari Vaskov, the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime head Boyan Raev and the head of the Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Counter-Terrorism Directorate, Nikolai Nikolov.

The new heads of the structures will be announced further on, and the criteria for their selection will be authority, integrity and extensive professional experience, the ministry said.

So far, 23 out of a total of 28 directors of regional directorates of the Ministry of Interior have been replaced. The rest will remain at this stage, Dechev said recently.

He said he has a plan for how to work in relation to the elections and the plan has been launched.