site.btaRace to Parliament Remains Too Close to Call - AFIS Poll

Race to Parliament Remains Too Close to Call -  AFIS Poll

Sofia, March 17 (BTA) - Less than a fortnight before polling day, the winner in the forthcoming early parliamentary elections remains unclear, the AFIS agency found in a self-financed poll taken between March 12 and 16 among 1,010 respondents in the capital city, the regional centres and other towns and villages.

Five parties and coalitions will certainly clear the 4 per cent barrier to Parliament. If the elections were held today, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) would receive 31.5 per cent of the votes, the GERB Party (31.2 per cent), the United Patriots (9.9 per cent), the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) (8.5 per cent), and the Volya Party 5.3 per cent. Another two entities still stand a chance: the Reformist Bloc-People's Voice coalition (4.4. per cent) and the ABV-Movement 21 coalition (4.1 per cent).

Nominally, an entity will need between 140,000 and 160,000 votes to secure representation in the next legislature.

Voter turnout is likely to be substantially higher than at the previous parliamentary elections in October 2014 (48.7 per cent) and even higher than at the presidential elections in November 2016 (50.3 per cent). More than half of the qualified voters (51 per cent) are firmly resolved to go to the polls, and another fifth are quite certain that they will cast ballots. This translates into a turnout of 70 per cent or even more, which practically means between 54 and 57 per cent of those figuring on the electoral rolls which include a number of expatriates most of whom do not vote.

Approximately 6 per cent will exercise their franchise "against their will", i.e. because voting is compulsory, and will pick the "None Of The Above" option.

The poll found right-wing voters relatively more hesitant than left-wing ones, but the supporters of the Left have fewer options: BSP For Bulgaria and the ABV-Movement 21 coalition, whereas the right-hand side of the spectrum abounds in parties and coalitions, including such that do not identify themselves as Right (like business Vesselin Mareshki) but pose as radical opponents to the Left at the propaganda level.

The only surprise detected by AFIS is a downward trend of Mareshki's Volya Party, who began the campaign with a 30 per cent higher support but at the end was caught up and even overtaken by the MRF, which can count on extra support on polling day that escapes undetected in the pre-election surveys.

The MRF electorate seems highly and genuinely mobilized, and they are almost certainly motivated by competition from the DOST Alliance.