The corporate vote is leading compared to the transfer of money from hand to hand, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told BNT.
According to him, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not act as a repressive body, but does its job.
This time there is significantly more operational work with the criminal contingent that participates in the elections. This work has multiplied and the results are visible. Demerdzhiev pointed out.
“Anyone who is caught in Bulgaria by definition says that they are repressed. For better or for worse, some of those detained are members of political parties.”
According to the interior minister, people who try to manipulate the voters’ attitude are extremely inventive.
“The corporate vote is leading to that of the pure transfer of money from hand to hand. Obviously, the increased police presence deters this process of direct transfer of money and ways are being sought to circumvent it or to delay the payment in time or else there is no direct payment, but to have promises of something else or different. Some municipal governments are active in places, some owners of large commercial companies are active, which have thousands of employees – so we monitor all these processes“, Minister Demerdzhiev explained.
He said that the powers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are reduced to the protection of public order, the protection of the voting machines and the materials that are transported to each RIC and from there to the SECs.
“The forces are prepared and there are no concerns regarding the electoral process. What is new this year is that the Ministry of Defense has very actively assisted us in protecting the border. We can deploy a significant force of the gendarmerie starting today and they will begin intensive police operations on the territory of the whole country – preventive, aimed at the election day”explained Ivan Demerdzhiev.
With regard to illegal migration, the interior minister said that people who entered the country illegally are searched for and caught throughout the country.
“Last year we had a record migrant pressure – these are the attempts to illegally cross the Bulgarian border. They were over 168 thousand per month, and a few years earlier the record was 90 thousand, to make the distinction. For the first three months this year there is a 45% increase in these attempts. Compared to the first three months of this year and last year, we have a 40% drop in these people.” specified Demerdzhiev.
He also pointed out that Europe gives an extremely high and objective assessment of the processes related to migration pressure on all external borders of the union:
“Europe had no intention of financing the Bulgarian-Turkish border when I took office. We repeatedly asked the question then – the answer was that there are no such funds and opportunities. This is an extremely high assessment – the designation of this border as a priority is not intended to help us to us, but in order to appreciate the efforts we made”.
“Border Police” has identified the measures for the technical security of the border. In addition to the funds from the EC, internal funds have also been set aside for conservation.
