Bulgaria’s April elections: GERB-UDF set to win largest share of votes – partial results
Former Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB-UDF coalition won the largest share of the vote in the April 2 parliamentary elections, according to partial results from the Central Election Commission.
With ballots from 99.6 per cent of all voting precincts tallied, GERB-UDF received 26.54 per cent of the votes, ahead of the We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB) electoral coalition, which had 24.61 per cent.
Pro-Russian Vuzrazhdane was set to become the third largest party in the 49th National Assembly, winning 14.19 per cent of the vote, followed by the predominantly ethnic Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms, with 13.55 per cent.
Kornelia Ninova’s Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was fourth with 8.96 per cent, while cable television presenter Slavi Trifonov’s ITN party was set to return to Parliament after winning 4.12 per cent.
Former caretaker prime minister Stefan Yanev’s Bulgaria Ascending party and The Left, a coalition of BSP splinter groups, fell short of the four per cent parliamentary representation threshold, winning 3.09 per cent and 2.24 per cent, respectively.
The final results, including the number of seats won by the parties and coalitions standing in the April 2023 parliamentary election, were expected to be announced by the Central Election Commission later this week.
The names of the MPs in the 240-seat legislature would be announced several days later, allowing those candidates who stood for election in more than one electoral district to choose which one they would represent in the next Parliament.
The Central Election Commission was yet to announce the final turnout figures, but said that 27.27 per cent had cast ballots as of 4pm on April 2, compared to 25.58 per cent recorded at the same point in the October 2 2022 election. Final turnout in the October 2022 election was 39.4 per cent.
(Bulgarian Parliament. Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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