Bulgarian elections: GERB-UDF top as eight groups set to win seats – preliminary results
Former Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB-UDF coalition received the largest share of the vote in the October 27 early parliamentary elections, as a eight parties and coalitions were set to win seats in the next Parliament, according to partial results from Bulgaria’s Central Election Commission.
With ballots from all voting precincts tallied, GERB-UDF received 26.39 per cent of the votes, ahead of We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB) centre-right electoral coalition, which had 14.2 per cent.
Pro-Russian Vuzrazhdane was set to be the third-largest group in the 51st National Assembly, winning 13.36 per cent, followed by Delyan Peevski’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) – New Beginning coalition with 11.55 per cent.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) – United Left coalition was fifth with 7.57 per cent, ahead of MRF founder Ahmed Dogan’s Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ARF) coalition on 7.48 per cent and cable television presenter Slavi Trifonov’s ITN party on 6.78 per cent.
Nationalist-populist Mech were set to be the smallest group in the next National Assembly after receiving 4.6 per cent. Velichie, another small nationalist-populist party, was set to miss out after receiving 3.999 per cent of the vote, just short of the four per cent threshold for parliamentary representation.
The final results, including the number of seats won by the parties and coalitions standing in the October 2024 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 seat they will take.
The Central Election Commission was yet to announce the final turnout figures, but said that 26.25 per cent had cast ballots as of 4pm on October 27, compared to 20.44 per cent recorded at the same point in the June 9 National Assembly and European Parliament election. Final turnout in the June 9 election was 34.41 per cent.
(Photo of National Assembly plenary hall: parliament.bg)
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