Bulgaria’s caretaker PM: 223 arrested so far for breaching electoral law
A total of 223 people have been arrested so far for breaches of electoral law, Bulgaria’s caretaker Prime Minister Andrei Gyurov said on April 8, according to a statement by the government information service.
Gyurov was speaking at the start of a regular meeting of the caretaker government, 11 days ahead of Bulgaria’s April 19 early parliamentary elections.
He emphasised the fight against vote brokers, whom he described as hijackers of democracy.
Referring to the number of people arrested, Gyurov said: “If we wonder whether they are many or few, let us recall how many MPs there are in Parliament – 240 people”.
“We have caught almost as many who are trying to replace the will of Bulgarian citizens in order to replace these MPs with our own,” he said.
The statement said that Gyurov asked who are the people behind the detained vote brokers.
He also asked who are those who want to enter Parliament through the notebooks with the bills of exchange, through the usurers.
“We do not see the political parties attacking them – they attack the caretaker government, this is what their election campaign is built on,” Gyurov said.
On April 6, deputy interior minister Ivan Anchev said that so far there had been 1042 reports from the public about violations of electoral law, compared with 179 at the same point before the October 2024 elections.
The total number of criminal proceedings initiated by April 6 was 308, compared with 58 at the same point in the previous elections.
As of April 3, a total of 167 special police operations had been conducted, which was six fewer than during the 2024 elections.
“When someone accuses the Interior Ministry of excessive activity, keep in mind that all the mentioned indicators were achieved with far fewer resources, and the results are visibly more significant,” Anchev said.
(Photo: government.bg)
