site.btaActing Prosecutor General Says All Alerts of Electoral Violations Are Processed within 48 Hours without Delays

Acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov said Wednesday that all reports of electoral violations are processed within 48 hours without delays. He attended a meeting at the Presidency on the preparation of the October 27 parliamentary elections and on ensuring the fairness of the vote. 

Sarafov said that the prosecution service also interacts well with the Central Election Commission (CEC) and recalled that a national inter-agency unit and regional units of the prosecution service, the Ministry of Interior and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) have been established to interact against any violations of the electoral process.

Regarding the lists of persons published and sent to the prosecution service, Interior Ministry and SANS, Sarafov said he was deeply convinced that the Ministry "is not surprised by many of the names on these lists". 

"The rule of law requires all of us not to retaliate against someone just because he is named, and by an anonymous source. Many of these names deserve to be the object and target of our work," he added, but made the point that "it is not enough for someone to have a nickname to be targeted."

The Yes, Bulgaria! party announced on social media on Tuesday that they had submitted an alert with 200 names of vote buyers to the heads of the Interior Ministry, SANS and the prosecution service. The post says that the names were made public by the informal group BG Elves. 

"The BG Elves lists detail the individuals by each region of the country by their first and last names, as well as the nicknames by which they are known in society. The information also includes details relating to which political party these individuals appear to represent and respectively buy votes for. The published lists constitute a legitimate occasion within the meaning of Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code and should be checked with a view to possible pre-trial proceedings. The published names constitute a real threat to national security in view of the violation of democratic principles of the rule of law. The lack of reaction on the part of the Bulgarian institutions is absolutely unacceptable in view of the risks to national security and the fairness of the current elections. There are grounds for a full, comprehensive and objective inquiry, on which there must be a public report within a short time," the publication on social media reads. 

President Rumen Radev said at the meeting on Wednesday that he did not want to comment on these lists "and how credible they are". In his opinion, however, the fact that civil society is already rising up, starting to collect information, to summarize it, to provide it to the institutions, means that a limit of intolerance is being reached regarding the fairness of the electoral process. Radev added that this is an important warning for the institutions.