The interior ministry is working on election arrangements and has already held a national meeting on the topic, interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said ahead of the opening of the 12th European Police Volleyball Championship, which Bulgaria is hosting.

All the bodies in charge of running the election will meet tomorrow to coordinate. Every regional police unit has been told to crack down on vote-buying. The ministry has run plenty of elections before, Demerdzhiev said.

Pre-trial checks are looking at whether the guardrails on Bulgaria's roads have the right certificates and passed the tests they're supposed to. The minister said there are grounds to doubt the guardrails were put up lawfully and meet the rules.

More than 96% of guardrail contracts go to the same four companies. Under the current government, one more such contract has been cancelled — and it too was about to go to the same four firms, Demerdzhiev said. The file has already gone to prosecutors. The minister said he expects them to look into it just as fast and just as thoroughly as they did the complaint from Delyan Peevski about improperly obtained data on his flights.

Demerdzhiev said earlier that guardrail suppliers had been funnelling money into a "slush fund" company, which paid for flights for the leader of the MRF party.

Asked about a link to Boyko Borisov, the minister said Vladislav Goranov's name comes up in the case, and Goranov is close enough to Borisov. "We know how that party is set up, we know how it's run — it's practically been a one-man show for years, and I don't believe Vladislav Goranov or any other official could have acted at that level without Borisov's say-so and approval," he said. Stamping out corrupt practices in public procurement is one of the ministry's main goals, Demerdzhiev added.

The minister also spoke about a joint operation by the state security agency (DANS) and Plovdiv police against a group carrying out non-traditional rituals involving psychoactive substances. He gave no details but said other such groups exist in Bulgaria, and the job now is to find and shut them down before they grow.