Bulgarian election fraud in spotlight on eve of vote

By Edward McAllister and Alex Lefkowitz

SOFIA, April 16 (Reuters) – There are many reliable ways to meddle in a Bulgarian election.

Brokers working for political parties offer voters 50 to 100 euros ($59 to $118) for their support. Agents threaten to halt wood supplies to rural households that rely on them for heating. Some pressure employers to ensure their workers vote in unison.

The practices are decades-old, a dozen local officials, analysts and voters told Reuters. But they have come to the fore as Bulgaria prepares for its eighth election in five years on Sunday and as a caretaker government promises to make these polls the cleanest in years.

The move coincides with a growing democratic impatience in Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 6.5 million people, where calls for reform have grown since nationwide protests last December forced out the previous government.

“The Interior Ministry is devoted to having fair elections without giving priority to any of the political players on the ground,” Deputy Interior Minister Ivan Anchev told Reuters, although he recognised how deep-rooted the problems are.

“We want to do our best, knowing very well there is no way to bring all the vote-buying and negative examples down to zero.”

ARRESTS, CASH, VOTER NAMES

The last parliamentary election, in October 2024, was marred by scandal and partially overturned by the Constitutional Court last year after it reviewed evidence of vote-tampering.

To avoid a repeat, the government has set up a unit to oversee the election process and created a hotline for voters to report suspicious activity.  

In recent weeks, local media has been filled with reports from across Bulgaria of police catching brokers or local officials with lists of voters’ names and sometimes thousands of euros in cash.

As of last week, over 1,000 election violations had been reported and more than 180 people detained, according to Interior Ministry data – five times more than in the lead-up to the October 2024 vote.

This will likely eradicate the most blatant abuses but may miss the more ingrained networks of influence, analysts said.

The Sofia-based Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF), which monitors election fraud, estimates conservatively that 10% to 15% of votes are at risk of capture, either through direct vote-buying or broader efforts to influence ballots by distributing key services. 

“The more fundamental problem… is that entrenched clientelistic practices that rely on electoral fraud beyond election day and the discretionary spending of public funds can hardly be overcome through police activity alone and require a targeted, long-term policy,” said ACF analyst Mario Rusinov.

“Any meaningful effort to dismantle controlled voting must begin the day after the elections.” 

PRESSURE TO WIN VOTES

Experts say most parties are involved in voter control in one way or another, though all deny wrongdoing.

Red flags appear when polling stations report sudden, large changes in voting patterns between elections, a suspiciously high vote count for one candidate, or a high number of invalid ballots.

Based on historical data, the ACF has identified 1,738 polling stations at risk of fraud out of a total of nearly 12,000. 

Much of the focus of election control is on municipal mayors who have influence over not just their towns but also leaders of villages across their jurisdiction. Winning the mayor’s support can swing a much larger area.

One mayor in southern Bulgaria who asked not to be named said he was approached by agents from a rival party who wanted him to change allegiance. He refused. Then last year, he was hit by a barrage of financial audits and police investigations that he said were politically motivated to discredit him. 

“That’s the way they work. They put pressure on the mayors,” he said. 

Meanwhile, ordinary Bulgarians are mobilising ahead of Sunday’s vote.

An initiative called You Count, organised by the reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition, has recruited 3,000 people to monitor polling stations on election day – triple what it managed in 2024, said Mirella Andreeva, You Count’s legal counsel. 

Aleksandar Petrov, a 25-year-old IT professional, said he planned to sign up.

“I want the process to be fair,” he said. “If we can show that the votes on election day can be handled, then it gives more people hope to vote.”

($1 = 0.8485 euros)

(Writing by Edward McAllisterEditing by Gareth Jones)