Bulgaria’s May 2013 elections: New poll shows GERB leading with 24.1%
A new public opinion poll ahead of Bulgaria’s May 12 2013 national parliamentary elections has become the fourth in a week to see Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB party in the lead, in this case with 24.1 per cent to the Bulgarian Socialist Party-led Coalition for Bulgaria’s 18.2 per cent.
The poll, released on April 24 2013, was done by the Centre for Analysis and Marketing from April 12 to 18.
This means that it so far comes the closest to a poll done after the Prosecutor-General announced the findings of an initial investigation into alleged illegal eavesdropping under the GERB government. The findings, of “prerequisites” for illegal eavesdropping although without finding actual evidence during the two-week probe, has led to prosecution for four officials and calls by rival parties for former interior minister and GERB campaign chief Tsvetan Tsvetanov to withdraw from politics.
Tsvetanov denies all allegations of wrongdoing and has said that no evidence has come forth to prompt him to keep to his pledge to quit politics should it be shown that there was illegal wiretapping while he was interior minister.
The Centre for Analysis and Marketing poll found that support for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms was 6.1 per cent, for Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalist Ataka party 4.8 per cent and Meglena Kouneva’s Bulgaria for Citizens, 4.4 per cent.
Of those polled, 22.6 per cent said that they wanted Borissov, who headed the government from 2009 to 2013, to be Prime Minister.
Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Sergei Stanishev was named by 7.6 per cent as their choice for Prime Minister. However, Stanishev has said that he would not become PM should his party win, and has put forward Plamen Oresharski, who was finance minister in the 2005 to 2009 socialist-led tripartite coalition, as the Coalition for Bulgaria’s candidate to head the government.
Of those polled, 6.7 per cent said that they wanted Oresharski to be Prime Minister. Kouneva, a former European Commissioner who failed in a presidential bid in 2011, got 2.1 per cent support to be PM.
On April 19, a poll by the National Centre for the Study of Public Opinion said that GERB had a 6.4 per cent lead over Stanishev’s socialists, with 23.9 per cent for Borissov’s party and 17.5 per cent for the socialists.
On April 19, the AFIS agency said that GERB had 24 per cent, the BSP 18.9 per cent, Ataka 5.4 per cent, the MRF five per cent and Kouneva’s party 3.1 per cent. On April 18, polling agency Alpha Research said that GERB had 22.5 per cent, a slight gain month-on-month and the BSP at 16.9 per cent, a slight loss.
