What reforms are needed in the Ministry of Interior and will the new leadership make them?
"The fact that he is a person outside the system is not a problem, but a standard European practice. The idea is for the minister to manage some form of civilian control, as is the case in most ministries," said former Deputy Interior Minister Filip Gunev on "Denyat ON AIR".
In his words, when a policeman becomes a minister, he often puts the needs of the employees first.
"Ivanov's quick resignation signaled that politically no one was going to waste any special resources on defending him. Everyone who knows him knows that everyone in such a position has to work with one minister or another, and that doesn't make him someone's man," Gunev added for Bulgaria ON AIR.
According to him, Ivaylo Ivanov did the right thing by resigning from his post.
"He was also a victim of a political purge that Minister Rashkov carried out in the entire security sector. They were going to remove him in order to take control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When the professional leadership becomes politicized and they are fired with each subsequent government, decent police officers at high levels realize that this will be the end of their career," the guest emphasized.
The fact that these chief secretaries have no independence from these political purges is what makes this politicization in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Gunev is categorical.
"There is a need to raise the lowest salaries. It is normal when you have a police officer with a secondary education that he has a salary that is two or three times lower than an officer with 20 years of experience. It is just that the starting salaries are too low. Police officers are trained with difficulty. You have to constantly make sure that salaries are raised slightly," he pointed out.