Bulgarian prosecutors have confirmed that there was indeed an attempt for large-scale election fraud ahead of the country’s key Parliament vote on Sunday.

The Supreme Prosecutor's Office of Cassation has told bTV that the questionable ballots seized in a printing house on Saturday were not “printing spoilage”, as the printing house’s owner had claimed.

A scandal erupted on the eve of the election day, as local authorities stormed a printing house and seized 350,000 illegally printed ballots just hours before the vote.

The questionable ballots were seized from the premises of Multiprint, the company commissioned by the government to print the official election ballots. The company had to print and deliver all ballots to the district administrations by May 8.

Multiprint is owned by a municipal councilor from the center-right GERB party.

The owner, Yordan Bonchev, insisted that the said ballots had to be discarded over printing flaws and had to be kept in sealed packages at the printing house as the public tender rules postulated.

On Sunday, however, prosecutors confirmed that the seized ballots were ready to be brought out and transported. They said they had discovered the actual printing spoilage in the printing house.

Bulgarian opposition leaders stated on Saturday that the confiscated ballots were part of an attempted election fraud by the GERB party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. GERB has denied the accusations.

Bulgarians are voting in a tight snap election in which no party is expected to win a majority to form a government. Recent opinion polls indicate that GERB and the Bulgarian Socialist Party are nearly tied.

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