Attempts to buy votes were foiled and the election result was not distorted, interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said as he summed up election day. The interior ministry says voting passed without serious incidents.
On Tuesday, chief commissioner Lyubomir Nikolov, acting chief secretary of the ministry, also said there was no mass or organised vote buying.
What happened before: Interior ministry: no mass vote buying, most reports from northwest Bulgaria and Burgas
"We managed it. We did not let the result of the vote be spoiled and distorted," the minister said. He said good organisation and earlier work by police stopped the known schemes to sway the result.
In the last week before the vote there were many tip-offs and signs of attempts to secure a particular result with bought votes, Demerdzhiev said. Police acted early where they had information on organised violations, and this showed the practice can be stopped.
The minister also pointed to unusual activity by mayors. "There was a lot of strange activity in the last week, mostly by mayors, and pre-trial proceedings have been opened against many of them," he said. In his view, the mayors may have sprung into action to stop the investigations or to influence them.
The ministry will not let the manipulation of election results be used to avoid criminal prosecution, Demerdzhiev said. People want justice and will get it, and the ministry is working on it.
Police knew about planned breaches of the election law, and the people involved are well known to officers, the minister said. Everything possible was done to stop them from acting again under the old schemes.
Demerdzhiev gave a positive verdict on how the vote was run. Voting went without the queues and violations seen at earlier elections, and the result in the election records shows the real will of voters, he said. The minister thanked the thousands of police officers, their commanders and all interior ministry staff.
In all, there were 242 reports of violations, and 6 pre-trial proceedings have been opened, 2 of them fast-track. Most reports came from north-west Bulgaria and Burgas region.
Updated (01.11, 21:15): Interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev says there have been more than 500 reports of violations, not 242 as first announced. Ten people have been arrested, and the price of a vote ranged from €40 to €60, the interior ministry said. More than 10,000 officers guarded the polling stations.