Market Links poll: Borissov’s GERB-UDF has clear lead

Were Bulgaria to hold parliamentary elections now, Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB-UDF coalition would get 23 per cent of the votes of those who would go to the polls, according to a survey by the Market Links agency, the results of which were announced on August 1.

In a distant second place is the reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria coalition, at 15.3 per cent, according to the polling agency.

Third is the strife-torn Movement for Rights and Freedoms, at 12.8 per cent, followed by pro-Kremlin party Vuzrazhdane at 11 per cent, the Bulgarian Socialist Party at 6.9 per cent and populist ITN at 5.2 per cent.

This would produce a six-group 51st National Assembly.

Currently, it is widely expected that the third and final attempt in the current National Assembly to get a government elected will fail, and Bulgaria will face early parliamentary elections in mid-October, the seventh time in just more than three years that Bulgarians elect a legislature.

Market Links’s Dobromir Zhivkov told bTV on August 1 that he expected a low voter turnout, but everything depended on the course of the election campaign and whether parties would mobilise only their core electorates or would attract other electorates as well.

For now, voter turnout was expected to be below 40 per cent.

The poll was financed and implemented jointly by bTV and Market Links. It was conducted among 1008 people over 18 years of age in Bulgaria from July 20 to 28, using the methods of direct personal interviews and online polling.

(Photo: parliament.bg)

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