The election campaign for the April 19 vote has begun. The first election debate on the show "Face to Face" is between Angel Slavchev from "Vazrazhdane" and Radostin Vassilev, leader of MECH. Both are leaders of lists, and the topic is "Internal Order, Justice, Corruption".
According to Angel Slavchev, the Ministry of Interior has a key role, but does not fulfill it effectively.
He gave specific examples from his practice: “I have filed signals with the Ministry of Interior about people who buy votes. The result was zero. On election day, our representatives filed reports of vote buying, and then they started suing them for defamation.“
According to him, the problem is not so much with the rank-and-file employees as with the administration.
„However, the truth is that the Ministry of Interior is not coping with personnel, and not the police officers themselves on the ground“, Slavchev believes.
Radostin Vassilev emphasized the need for a deep structural reform in the Ministry of Interior.
„If this system is not reformed, we are facing absolute collapse“, the leader of MECH believes.
He emphasized the growing costs for the Ministry of Interior system: „In 10 years, the budget of the Ministry of Interior has increased 4 times - to 4.3 billion leva. 90% of the budget is for salaries. We have 20,000 administration. We can't expect the Ministry of Interior to deal with such a bloated staff.“
Vassilev proposes that the administration be reduced by 5,000 people and that there be 15,000 police officers in the field.
He was also critical of the presence of many pensioners in the system. According to me, there are currently about 5,000 of them and they receive both a pension and a salary.
The two entered into a direct dispute over social benefits in the Ministry of Interior.
„These people have earned this salary in the Ministry of Interior. There is a great danger that if we remove them, everyone will start leaving“, Slavchev believes.
Vassilev insisted on a tougher approach: „If they don't reduce the number of pensioners in the Ministry of Interior, we will have to limit this social pressure. Either we really put Bulgaria in order, or we continue to live like this.“
Despite their disagreements, the two united around the thesis that the problems in the system are managerial.