Bulgaria’s elections: Poll shows attitudes on LGBTI issues
Four in ten Bulgarians would be willing to vote for a political party with a positive message on LGBTI rights, according to a survey commissioned by GLAS Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
A total of 34.8 per cent of the respondents in the poll said that they would vote for a political party supporting LGBTI rights if their positions on other important issues aligned, while 6.4 per cent said that they would back a party with a pro-LGBTI position unconditionally.
However, 38.3 per cent of the respondents in the poll said that they were opposed to the party they supported taking a pro-LGBTI stance.
“The results of the survey show that political parties should not be afraid to make their position on the topic of LGBTI equality in Bulgaria known. Unfortunately, in recent years we have only heard silence. With most parties this could only lead to stronger and possibly wider electoral support,” the head of GLAS Foundation, Simeon Vassilev, said.
Among the parties and coalitions standing for the April 4 parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, a pro-LGBTI message was most likely to resonate with likely supporters of Democratic Bulgaria, according to the survey.
About 75 per cent of the survey’s respondents said that they would support the party unconditionally or if their positions on other important issues aligned, should the party back LGBTI rights.
Significant support was also registered with potential voters of the formation headed by former Ombudsman Maya Manolova (58.6 per cent), the party formed around cable television presenter Slavi Trifonov (53.2 per cent) and the senior partner in the current government coalition, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB (53.2 per cent).
The strongest opposition to a pro-LGBTI rights message came from supporters of the coalition between Valeri Simeonov’s ultra-nationalist National Movement for the Salvation of Bulgaria and Vesselin Mareshki’s populist Volya (66.7 per cent), the Bulgarian Socialist Party (60.9 per cent) and the ultra-nationalist VMRO (56.3 per cent).
The survey was carried out by polling agency Alpha Research on a nationally representative sample of 1013 people between February 26 and March 1.
(Photo: Ludovic Bertron)
Please support independent journalism by clicking on the orange button below. For as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies, you can support The Sofia Globe via patreon.com and get access to exclusive subscriber-only content:
