Bulgaria's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) refused to comment on the overnight raid at a Kostinbroad-based printing house which resulted in the seizure of 350 000 ballots.

Ralitsa Negentsova, CEC Spokesperson, told the Focus news agency that the Commission had not received any official information about the case, adding that the issue was beyond the competence of the body.

Late on May 10, a team of prosecutors and officers of the State Agency for National Security (DANS) stormed into a printing facility in the western town of Kostinbrod and seized a total of 350 000 ballots.

On Saturday, the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office confirmed that it had opened pre-trial proceedings for violation of secret ballot and manipulation of election results as defined in Art. 282 and Art. 169 of the Penal Code.

The SCPO informed that the inspection at the printing house of the Multiprint OOD company had uncovered a total of 350 000 ballots stored at the premises despite the fact that the firm had already fulfilled its contractual obligations to deliver the ballots to the local administrations by May 8.

The prosecuting authority assured that the extra ballots were stored under enhanced security measures.

The printing house is owned by Bonchev, municipal councilor in Kostinbrod from center-right party GERB.

Multiprint was awarded a public procurement contract worth around BGN 800 000 to print and deliver a total of 7.8 million ballots for the May 12 early elections.

Approached by journalists of private TV station TV7 to comment on the probe, Bonchev denied that the authorities had seized fake ballots.

He argued that DANS and the prosecuting authority had inspected the implementation of the public procurement contract.

Private TV station TV7, which broke the news about the raid, made clear that the printing facility was owned by Yordan Bonchev, municipal councilor of center-right party GERB in Kostinbrod.

Approached by journalists of TV7 to comment on the matter, Bonchev suggested that the inspection had found a stash of flawed ballots.

He specified that some 330 000 ballots for Triadista district in Sofia had had to be replaced last week due to a flaw.

The owner of the printing house was adamant that no ballots had been printed after May 8.

He rejected having been arrested or questioned.

Bulgarians go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new Parliament.

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