The question of whether we can expect fair elections has been raised for a long time. For the last two choices, the answer was negative. There are serious prerequisites to face the same problems now. We do not know what is happening with the chief secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, regional directors were changed, but I have not heard of any changes being made to counteract the election mandates.
This was stated by Ivan Demerdzhiev, former interior and justice minister, on bTV.
„We don't know what is happening with the chief secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, regional directors were changed, but I have not heard of any changes being made in order to counteract the election mandates. The people that Kalin Stoyanov put in places must be changed, clearly at whose behest. The Ministry of the Interior has two roles: organizational, including the delivery of the machines and ballots, and also countering attempts to distort the election results. This is done in two ways – once, working operationally, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs must have a presence in risky sections and where there are suspicions of manipulations. The Ministry of the Interior should indicate the possible practices in advance, but I do not see this happening. It became clear to the whole of Bulgaria how this staffing in the Ministry of the Interior was regulated during the time of Kalin Stoyanov, when Peevski supported him. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has not had a chief secretary for a long time, there is an acting "It is vital that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has a real chief secretary to manage the system," he stressed.
According to him, there is a lack of communication between the CEC and the executive power, therefore a good organization of the election process cannot be expected: “The lack of transparency of the entire process reduces public trust even more. Improvement efforts are imitated. The real catalyst will be when the results come out. Then we will see if there is an unusually high turnout in certain places and if there is more than 90% vote for the same party – in the previous elections, it was for GERB and DPS.“
„What is happening with DPS is a continuation of something that was happening with businesses, banks and others. It is extremely ugly. The institutions are adjusting, the court is also involved. All the problems that have accumulated are now referred to the court and the acts are not very convincing. It disturbs me that, from a purely legal point of view, the acts are not particularly convincing. There remains the doubt and the feeling that somehow they have a predetermined outcome and the institutions are forced to take sides in this dispute. "The next institution that will be involved in the dispute will be the SJC with the election of a new chief prosecutor," he also believes.
It is for the SJC that he stated: “There is no way to conduct a convincing election of the chief prosecutor for the next 7 years in this way and expect something different from the Tsatsarov and Geshev model. The SJC is not a court, it does not administer justice. It administers in the judicial system and is normally accountable to society. When public opinion of him is so low, he cannot enter such a cardinal election. Politicians should have come to an understanding long ago and started the judicial reform with the end of this active body with a long expired mandate. If the parties do not understand that they cannot provide justice and security to the citizens, distrust towards them will continue to grow and this threatens the political class. Sooner or later it will be swept away by the people.“
„Until citizens are heard, given the opportunity to vote for real platforms that work for them, nothing will change. There is no real political debate, no one is talking about people's problems. The low trust – the last two picks contributed to that. The people were lied to by a number of parties, they face the bought vote, they think their vote doesn't matter," Demerdzhiev also said.
He is adamant that there will be judicial reform when quasi-measures are not applied.