site.btaFive or Seven Parties in Next Parliament - Survey

ESD 16:28:30 19-09-2014
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116 POLITICS - ELECTIONS - PARTIES - SURVEY

Five or Seven Parties in
Next Parliament -
Survey


Sofia, September 19 (BTA) - Five or seven political forces will
win seats in the next Parliament, according to the Centre for
Demographic Policy and the Demographic Institute with the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Arts. They conducted a survey
among 1,342 people on September 5-12.

Its findings were presented at a news conference at the BTA
Press Club on Friday.

The survey gave GERB 19.5 per cent of the vote at the October 5
early parliamentary elections, the Bulgarian Socialist Party
(BSP) 15.2 per cent, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF)
9.6 per cent, the Patriotic Front 6.2 per cent, the Reformist
Bloc 4.2 per cent, ABV and Bulgaria without Censorship (BwC) 3.4
per cent each.

The scientists came up with scenarios for a five-party and a
seven-party parliament. In the first case, GERB will have 86
seats, BSP 67, MRF 42, the Patriotic Front 27, and the Reformist
Bloc 18. In a seven-party parliament, GERB would win 75 seats,
BSP 58, MRF 37, the Patriotic Front 24, the Reformist Bloc 16,
ABV and BwC 15 each.

Prof Nikola Altunkov said there was a serious problem with
"ghost voters" on the electoral rolls. There are between 470,000
and 796,000 people who do not have the right to vote but are on
the rolls. Prof Altunkov said it is large parties that need
those "ghost voters". Information Services Plc., which counts
the votes, takes advantage of them, he said.

Another problem is that Bulgarians abroad have no access to
preferential voting because there is no separate election
district for them. The Institute's representatives are concerned
that some voters may vote twice - for instance, first in Turkey
and then in Bulgaria. VI/DD

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