Caretaker Minister of Interior: in some settlements, there is unprecedented pressure on voters ahead of the early parliamentary elections

We have identified many people who have started to organise vote-buying, caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Boyko Rashkov said at a briefing after the meeting of the Council of Ministers on June 23.

The Ministry of the Interior has discussed, within and outside the Headquarters with the Regional Directorates of the Ministry of the Interior, various aspects and problems related to the lawful, fair and transparent conduct of the elections.

"As you can see, in the meeting of the Council of Ministers we invited representatives of local authorities, district governors., today they participated, the regional governors of Burgas and Smolyan were heard, because in each constituency there are problems of different nature. I was very impressed that in some places, there is a huge pressure on individual citizens who will vote on July 11," the caretaker minister said.

The authorities have identified many people who have started to organize vote buying. Measures will be taken against these people, at the right moment, to prevent violations against the political rights of the citizens," he said.

The pressure is being exerted in various ways and on various occasions - for example, when a voter wants to buy firewood from the local forestry company or to use some other public service, Rashkov said. He described it as "an outrageous practice."

The Ministry of Interior has a key role in ensuring fair elections and, as the most difficult task, to prevent vote buying.

Necessary legal actions will be taken against individuals for whom information and data are collected.

The main issue at the meeting of the Council of Ministers was the voting machines, informed the caretaker Deputy Prime Minister.

"For the previous elections (on April 4) there were 9,600 provided, now more are needed. At the beginning of this month, on June 3, an order was made and an attempt was made to negotiate with Ciela Norma for the supply of additional 1,500 voting machines. But this agreement was not fully realized due to the unfavourable price that was offered, so 4 days later the negotiations with "Ciela Norma" were suspended, and on June 14 terminated. We proceeded to discuss another option - with "Information Services" company and in practice first the Central Election Commission (CEC) decided to buy these machines, second - the Council of Ministers to consider the issue of assigning such a task to the Information Services, so as to participate in the procedure for delivery of 1,637 machines for the elections on July 11. The Council of Ministers made this decision, the funds will be transferred to CEC, it will transfer them to “Information Services” and the provider will receive the agreed amount of money," Rashkov said.

The machines will be transported from the Netherlands and will arrive in Bulgaria by the weekend. The machines will be stored in the same place as those from the April 4 parliamentary elections.