site.btaIf Parliamentary Elections Were Held Now, GERB Would Win 24.3% of the Vote, BSP 13.2%

If Parliamentary Elections Were Held Now, GERB Would Win 24.3% of the Vote, BSP 13.2%

Sofia, April 4 (BTA) - If parliamentary elections were held now, the GERB party would lead with 24.3 per cent of the vote, followed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) with 13.2 per cent and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) with 5.7 per cent, shows a nationwide representative survey conducted by the Exacta Research Group among 1,000 adult respondents between March 17 and 25.

The pollsters found that the Reformist Bloc would get 5.5 per cent of the vote, the Patriotic Front 4.5 per cent, ABV 2.6 per cent and Ataka 2.5 per cent.

Exacta concluded that GERB preserved its electoral weight in March compared with February and remained the number one political force in Bulgaria.

Two months before the next BSP congress, the polling agency registered a slight mobilization of the party's electorate. One BSP supporter in three believes that the party is expanding its influence, but two in three do not share this view. At the same time, support for BSP leader Mihail Mikov has declined somewhat. He enjoyed the approval of 15 per cent of Bulgarians in March, down by 2 percentage points compared with February.

Kornelia Ninova, tipped to be Mikov's main rival in the race for the top party post, boasts a better position than him among the overall population, with 21 per cent approval. Ninova is favoured over Mikov by economically active Bulgarians, highly educated people and residents of the national capital and the regional capitals. Among left-wing voters, Ninova's and Mikov's support base is almost equally large - about two-thirds of BSP supporters give good marks for each of them.

Those who identify themselves as MRF electorate account for 5.7 per cent of respondents. More in-depth analysis shows that one MRF voter in three wonders whether to support MRF's new rival, the DOST party founded by former MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan. DOST's current political potential remains unclear as electoral moods only indicate how things might look in the future, not now, the pollsters commented.

No major changes have been registered in the electoral weight of the Reformist Bloc and the Patriotic Front.

The ABV has preserved its chance of entering the next Parliament as the party is supported by 2.6 per cent of eligible voters. The ABV has benefited from the high individual ratings of its Chairman Georgi Purvanov and its representative in the government, Deputy Prime Minister and Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivailo Kalfin.

There is little change in the overall picture of electoral moods and if any dynamism can be expected in the future, it is associated above all with the electorate of the MRF and the Reformist Bloc. The poll shows that none of the smaller, non-parliamentary parties are likely to make it into the next Parliament.