site.btaTurkish Media Describe Bulgarian Voters as Disillusioned and Tired of Elections

"The people are disillusioned, voter turnout was low", the Turkish opposition news website Evrensel.net says, covering the early parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, which were held on June 9 simultaneously with the Bulgarian elections to the European Parliament.

Beset by low pensions, unsatisfactory healthcare and unemployment, Bulgaria held its sixth parliamentary elections in three years, the report says. It notes that people were tired of going to the polls, but still, turnout was around 32%.

The main message from the voters obviously was, we have our minds set on how to get by, not on your elections, the report goes.

It further says that the GERB party of ex-prime minister Boyko Borissov came in first, despite large-scale protests against it a few years ago.

 According to Evrensel.net, Bulgarian Turkish expatriates in Turkiye holding dual citizenship cast their ballots in the Bulgarian parliamentary elections in many places in Turkiye, among them Edirne, Tekirdag, Kirklareli, Bursa, Eskisehir, Istanbul and Izmir. At Bulgarian diplomatic offices in Turkiye, they could also vote in the Bulgarian elections to the European Parliament.

Another Turkish website, Haberler.com, says that those Bulgarians who went to the polls for the sixth time in three years were not very enthusiastic about the process. Although voting is compulsory in Bulgaria, turnout in both elections on June 9 was a little over 30%, it notes.

The GERB party of ex-prime minister Boyko Borissov ranked first, but it is again unable to form a government by itself, Haberler.com says, adding that some of the other political forces (MRF, CC-DB, and Vazrazhdane) are very close together in terms of election scores.

The MRF (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), whose members, Haberler.com says, are mainly Turks and Muslims, controlled 36 out of 240 seats in the previous Bulgarian Parliament, and now it is expected to get more, the website says.