Interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev expects more people to be involved, and more to be charged, in the case against the detained mayors of Belitsa and Sungurlare.
"This activity is huge in scale. I expect the circle of people involved in it to widen, and the number of defendants too," the minister told reporters, according to BNT.
Demerdzhiev said there is solid evidence against the mayors and that the interior ministry does not pick mayors by party. Checks are under way across Bulgaria on public contracts and other activities where public money could be drained away, he said. Quite a few mayors are under investigation, not only from the DPS. He said that some of them are DPS mayors is not the ministry's doing.
The minister also spoke about road deaths and injuries. He said the problem is getting worse, and in his view the reason is that Bulgaria has no full strategy drawn up and adopted.
"For now, only the police are fighting this, as I would put it, with brute force," Demerdzhiev said.
In normal countries, police carry about 33% of the fight against road deaths and injuries, while almost 70% falls to state and municipal bodies, the minister said. In Bulgaria, police try to fill in for missing institutions but cannot cope alone. He said the answer is to adopt a full strategy.
The interior ministry, the transport ministry and the regional development and public works ministry are drafting it together. It runs to 2027 and includes changes to laws and to how institutions work.
Demerdzhiev said the strategy is starting to be applied and the results will show. As an example, he pointed to police action after which many vehicles had their tyres replaced and stopped flying off the road over crash barriers.
An interior ministry representative was asked whether results like Poland's can be expected without changes to the roads themselves. He said there is no chance without better infrastructure, better road signs and the involvement of municipalities. The ministry is trying to bring them in.
The first round of the election on the 25th passed very calmly and without vote buying, the minister said. In recent days, reports have become more frequent: there are attempts to get votes, mostly in support of one of the pairs, and other reports too. Each one is being worked on.
In the Hristo Botev district of Sofia, the interior ministry carried out an operation against vote buying. Demerdzhiev called on those taking part to keep the proper tone of the first round and said the ministry acts wherever it has information.
In the killing of Slavi Binev, police have identified an SUV and its owner, the minister said. He said the vehicle is somehow also linked to another investigation, which he had been asked about. There is no information that charges have been brought against the owner.