KYIV, April 1 (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s caretaker prime minister said elections this month will be among the country’s cleanest in years after his government launched efforts to tackle widespread misinformation and corruption.
Andrey Gyurov, who took office in February after the resignation of the previous administration following street protests last year, expressed hope that free and fair elections on April 19 would mark a turning point for voters’ confidence in institutions.
Dozens of people have been arrested in recent weeks linked to alleged vote buying as Gyurov seeks to clean up a perennial election problem in Bulgaria, one of Europe’s most corrupt countries. The government has said that suspects have been found with cash and lists of names.
“We think that this will be one of the fairest elections that we have seen in recent years,” Gyurov said during a visit to Kyiv this week, adding that incidents of corruption being reported to police had soared during his tenure as people saw that authorities were taking action.
In recent elections, Bulgaria has suffered from low turnout as disillusioned voters stayed away but Gyurov said there were signs that many more people would come to the polls this time around.
“I think this will have a multiplier effect on the confidence that people have in the institutions of the country.”
EIGHTH ELECTION IN FIVE YEARS
The previous government resigned in December after weeks of street protests over its economic policies and perceived failure to tackle corruption. This month’s snap election will be the eighth in just five years for the EU and NATO member state amid deep political divisions.
With polls indicating that no party will win a majority, Gyurov – who previously worked as a deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank – urged politicians to concentrate on building solid coalitions that would allow Bulgaria to have a stable government.
Recent surveys show the Progressive Bulgaria centre-left coalition of former President Rumen Radev leading voting intentions with around 30% of the vote. Radev resigned as president in January to compete in the elections.
He has pledged to tackle graft in a country where prosecutors allege that hundreds of millions of euros in European funds have been diverted into the pockets of businessmen and officials, and public tenders have been fixed.
This week a report by the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, a Berlin-based human rights watchdog, ranked Bulgaria as one of five European countries that are undermining the rule of law.
Gyurov accepted that many aspects of society were undermined by corruption, including freedom of the press, and he said future governments would need to undertake judicial reforms.
“There should not be people, oligarchs, that are able to influence the political processes in the country,” he said, identifying businessman and politician Delyan Peevski, who is under U.S. and UK sanctions for corruption, as one such individual.
“What we have shown as a government in recent weeks and months is that…the influence of such people can be fully isolated from the public political process.”
(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Additional reporting by Ed McAllister; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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