site.btaGERB Leader Borissov Raises Concerns over Voting Machine Control

GERB leader Boyko Borissov said the presidential election was already decided and questioned police oversight of voting machines on Monday.

“Now every voting machine, none of which has been certified, will be handled by a police officer, not a uniformed one but one of those with screwdrivers,” Borissov told journalists in Yambol when asked who GERB’s presidential candidate would be. Borissov introduced the party’s new regional coordinator. GERB Yambol Regional Coordinator Nikolay Kostadinov, who was deputy regional governor until the spring, took over from former Yambol MP Dimitar Ivanov, who served until the April 2026 parliamentary election.

Borissov said that GERB’s presidential candidate will emerge when the time is right. “For now, the main task for me and GERB’s Executive Committee is to renew the party and make changes that bring in more new faces. We are doing this through the GERB Academy as well. Fortunately, we have more and more newcomers and quite a few new candidates for executive office who could surprise the public,” Borissov added.

Borissov said that during the April 2026 parliamentary elections, GERB representatives, including then-Plovdiv deputy mayor Vladimir Temelkov, showed in a warehouse how a voting machine could be opened with a screwdriver. Borissov said Council of Ministers Secretary-General Kamelia Neykova, a former Central Election Commission (CEC) chair, was given her current post as a “reward” after the incident.

“And now, when the specialists and experts go in at night, they will set the machines to record the votes however they want. The flash drives will show that in the end. What kind of elections are you talking about?” Borissov asked.

Borissov said the government had publicly revealed its intentions by saying the Interior Ministry would be responsible for voting machines during elections. “What does that show? Which party will they be working for? Will they work against themselves, or will they ensure a fair vote? Only the gullible would believe that,” Borissov said.

“I return again to the phrase "cooking the vote with the machines and the President", Borissov said. He was referring to a remark by former Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov in a recording allegedly made at an online meeting of the party’s National Council in May 2023. While discussing the party’s electoral support, Petkov spoke of “cooking the vote through the President”. Voting machines were not mentioned in the recording.

“All the machines are now in [Progressive Bulgaria’s] warehouses. They are theirs, supposedly owned by a private company, but theirs nonetheless. Their technicians will certify them, and their police will guard them. It is exactly like Russia, where the Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Committee for State Security (KGB) keeps watch. The former CEC chair became secretary general of the Council of Ministers. Will she want to lose her post? No, she would not” Borissov added.