site.btaExacta Poll Gives GERB Nearly 3-Point Lead over BSP

106 POLITICS - ATTITUDES - EXACTA - POLL

Exacta Poll Gives GERB
Nearly 3-Point Lead
over BSP


Sofia, March 10 (BTA) - An Exacta Research Group poll found that if European Parliament elections were held in late February, GERB would win 22.2 per cent of all votes, followed by the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) with 19.4 per cent.

The Movement for Rights would come in third with 6.9 per cent, and the power-sharing United Patriots - provided the coalition runs in its present three-party format - would win 6.4 per cent. The parliamentary Volya party would win 1 per cent. As to the extraparliamentary right-wing entities, the Democratic Bulgaria coalition would garner 2.5 per cent of the vote and the Union of Democratic Forces would poll 1.3 per cent. These results suggest that right-wing parties stand a slimmer chance of a good showing if they run each on its own. However, it is not clear yet in what format they will run in the European elections in May, the agency said.

Asked if they would use preference voting, where voters can mark their preference for a specific candidate on a party ticket and thus improve his chances of being elected, 28 per cent of respondents said they would and 15 per cent said they would not. Half of the United Patriots' supporters and one in three voters for GERB and for the BSP said they would mark a preference. Among the decided voters in the European elections, those who will mark a preference are twice as many as those who will not.

Exacta commented that preference voting has become established in Bulgaria.

The nationally representative poll was taken on February 19-28 among 1,000 Bulgarians aged 18 or over as part of the agency's own research programme. LI/DD