Bulgarian Socialist Party ‘would get most votes’ were elections held now, poll says
The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) would get the largest share of votes in a narrow lead over Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB opposition party were elections held now, according to the results of a poll by Alpha Research released on October 2 2013.
This is the third poll in the past week to show a BSP lead over GERB, although the margins have varied along the parties included in the surveys by the respective agencies.
The BSP currently holds the mandate to govern, even though it ran second in the May 2013 parliamentary elections, after GERB had no allies in Parliament with which to form a governing coalition.
The BSP government stays in power with the support of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the party led and supported in the main by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent, and with the tacit co-operation of Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalist Ataka party.
The Alpha Research poll said that the MRF would get 6.1 per cent and the Reformist Bloc – a grouping of centre-right and right-wing parties which currently do not have seats in Parliament – would get seven per cent.
Ataka would not return to Parliament, Alpha Research said.
The Alpha Research poll was done among 1010 adult citizens between September 19 and 25.
It found that the current government had a 23 per cent approval rating and the 42nd National Assembly an approval rating of 11 per cent.
Seventy-six per cent of those polled wanted early parliamentary elections. Of these, 37 per cent wanted them within the next few months, and the rest when Bulgaria votes in European Parliament elections in May 2014.
While the BSP is seen by the poll results as ahead of GERB, Borissov has a higher approval rating than BSP leader Sergei Stanishev, 28 to 25 per cent, respectively.
A few days earlier, Bulgaria’s local Gallup agency said that the BSP would get 22.4 per cent in a snap election, GERB 19.1 per cent and the MRF 5.9 per cent. It claimed that support for and opposition to anti-government protests demanding the immediate resignation of the BSP government was evenly divided. This was in sharp contrast to other polls showing majority support for the BSP government’s resignation.
Ataka would not return to Parliament, Gallup said.
As September ended, the Afis agency said that its poll had found that snap elections would result in 21.2 per cent for the BSP, 19.9 per cent for GERB and 6.5 per cent for the MRF. At 3.3 per cent, the Reformist Bloc would not surpass the threshold for seats in Parliament, according to Afis.
Ataka would not return to Parliament, Afis said.
