Interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said the election was calm, without the usual vote buying and vote rigging. At a news conference, he said reports of vote trading came mostly from north-west Bulgaria and the Burgas region.
More than 17,000 interior ministry staff took part in securing the vote, said Lyubomir Nikolov, the ministry's acting chief secretary. In all, 242 reports of irregularities came in, 6 pre-trial proceedings were opened and 192 police operations were held across Bulgaria.
The ministry was not swamped with reports, Demerdzhiev said. Nikolov said every report was processed and passed at once to prosecutors' offices around the country.
Demerdzhiev said the election showed that Bulgaria can hold a democratic vote. He said machine voting removes many of the corrupt practices seen over the years, and it caused no problems.
A run-off is coming, and the ministry will stay alert until then so that illegal practices do not affect the result, the minister said.
Demerdzhiev was caretaker minister in 2022 and 2023, but he said the elections then and now cannot be compared.