site.btaExit Polls Give GERB Lead over BSP for Bulgaria

Parliamentary Elections: Exit Polls Give GERB Lead over BSP for Bulgaria

Sofia, March 26 (BTA) - According to exit polls, GERB won Bulgaria's early parliamentary elections on Sunday, gaining the most votes and leaving BSP for Bulgaria some 4 per cent behind. Five or six political forces have crossed the 4 per cent threshold to parliament: GERB, BSP for Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), United Patriots, Volya and, possibly, Reformist Bloc-People's Voice.

GERB has polled between 1,100,000 and 1,150,000 - as many as the 1,072,491 it got in the previous parliamentary elections in 2014. For its part, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) has received about a million votes, doubling its electoral support from 505,527 in the previous parliamentary elections.

Curiously, the United Patriots (a coalition of the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria (NFSB), the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) and Ataka) got slightly over 300,000 votes on Sunday, more than 200,000 less than the half a million garnered by their candidate Krassimir Karakachanov in the November 2016 presidential elections. Even in the previous parliamentary elections, the sum total of votes cast for the Patriotic Front (NFSB and IMRO) and Ataka approximated 390,000.

The MRF, too, suffered a substantial decline, with a little over 280,000 votes (excluding those cast in Turkey), some 30,000 more than the showing of Plamen Oresharski whom they backed in the presidential elections and around 200,000 less than their result in the 2014 presidential elections.

Exit Poll Results

Market Links:
1. GERB: 31.82 per cent
2. BSP for Bulgaria: 28.95 per cent
3. United Patriots: 8.49 per cent
4. MRF: 7.72 per cent
5. Volya: 4.89 per cent
6. Reformist Bloc-People's Voice: 4.19 per cent
7. Yes, Bulgaria: 3.49 per cent
8. DOST Alliance: 2.75 per cent

Gallup International:
1. GERB: 32.8 per cent (95 seats)
2. BSP for Bulgaria: 28.4 per cent (83 seats)
3. United Patriots: 8.8 per cent (26 seats)
4. MRF: 7.8 per cent (23 seats)
5. Volya: 4.6 per cent (13 seats)
6. Reformist Bloc: 3.8 per cent
7. Yes, Bulgaria: 3.6 per cent
8. New Republic: 3 per cent
9. DOST Alliance: 2.8 per cent
10. ABV-Movement: 21 2.6 per cent
None Of The Above: 2.8 per cent.

Alpha Research:
1. GERB: 32.2 per cent (86-88 seats)
2. BSP for Bulgaria: 28 per cent (75-77 seats)
3. United Patriots: 9.8 per cent (25-27 seats)
4. MRF: 9.7 per cent (25-27 seats)
5. Volya: 5.1 per cent (13-15 seats)
6. Reformist Bloc-People's Voice: 4 per cent (10-11 seats)
7. Yes, Bulgaria: 2.9 per cent
8. DOST Alliance: 2.7 per cent
9. New Republic: 2.6 per cent
10. ABV-Movement 21: 2.4 per cent
11. None Of The Above: 2.9 per cent.