It was most certain that a large part of the investigations launched over vote-buying during the current municipal elections in Bulgaria would end up with indictments filed with the court, Prosecutor General Boris Velchev said on October 31, as quoted by mediapool.bg.
Velchev appealed on the public to be patient on seeing results on such cases because investigators, prosecutors and judges had just about started to learn how to apply the recently approved legislation on the matter.
One week before elections, Parliament passed changes to the countrys Penal Code that criminalised not only buying but also selling of votes. The move was in an attempt to crack down not only on political parties violations but also to discourage people or groups to offer their vote against payment. Velchev criticised the new piece of legislation and said that the law should persecute those who buy votes and encourage the other side to testify against the buyers. Under the new legal arrangement, those who sell their vote would have no interest to unveil buyers.
Velchev said he had already been in contact with prosecutors of ten regional prosecution offices where investigation procedures had been launched over vote-buying. Those included the regions of Blagoevgrad, Pernik and the municipality of Nessebar, where cases of voting violations might have considerably distorted the outcome of the first round of the elections on October 28, Velchev said.
