Meglena Kuneva, leader of the Bulgaria for Citizens Movement, has argued that the scandal with the newly discovered heap of illegally printed ballots is an attempt to steal the dignity of the people.

"Bulgarian citizens do not deserve this humiliation. If they steal your dignity today, tomorrow they shall steal business and economy," Kuneva stated, commenting on the scandal with the 350 000 illegal ballots discovered at a printing house in Kostinbrod during an overnight probe of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, the State Agency for National Security (DANS) and the Interior Ministry.

Bulgaria's former EU Commissioner, as cited by Sega daily, called for a high voter turnout in Sunday's early elections so that the attempted manipulations would misfire.

She suggested that it was a good idea to amend legislation so as to provide that flawed ballots are to be destroyed before the vote, not afterwards.

She said that any steps which could ensure fair elections had to be taken, including boosting civic control.

She suggested that if all Bulgarians entitled to vote went to the polls on Sunday, they would manage to sabotage any fraud scheme.

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.

The company was to print and deliver the ballots to the district administrations by May 8.

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

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

Bonchev insisted that no ballots had been printed after May 8, adding that the probe had uncovered a pile of flawed ballots.

The inspection into the matter continues.

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