site.btaAround 45% of Bulgarian Youths Voted in EP Elections

Around 45% of Bulgarian youths eligible to vote in the European Parliament (EP) elections have voted, shows a report on the participation of young people in the EP elections on June 9, 2024. The report was prepared within the project Youth Participation in Democratic Life in partnership with the for Human Resource Development Centre and the National Youth Forum. The report is based on a secondary analysis of data from the exit poll conducted by Gallup International Balkan on the election day.

On June 9, Bulgarians voted both for national and for European Parliament. The turnout in the European elections was 33.78% and 34.41% in the parliamentary elections.

National Statistical Institute (NSI) data from 2023 show that young people between 15 and 29 years old number 872,339 in Bulgaria. Of these, 587,829 are over the age of majority. A total of 2,073,730 Bulgarians voted in the European Parliament elections on June 9, of whom around 265,400 were young people. 

The voter turnout in the EP elections was lower than in the national elections, where a total of 2,268,849 people voted, including 290,400 of youth, which equates to around 49% of eligible young people voting.  

The turnout in both elections was low for Bulgaria, and record low for the national parliamentary elections. Expectations that the national parliamentary election campaign would have a positive impact and boost turnout for the EP vote did not materialize, the report concludes.

The results of the EP elections at the national level indicate an upward trend in support for political formations with a right-wing and conservative ideological profile. The distribution shows that the rise of conservative politics is also reflected in the youth vote, but much of it can be described as "punitive" or "protest", "seeking a political alternative", the report notes. Left parties get a significantly smaller proportion of the youth vote than the total support they have received.

There Is Such a People (TISP) political party garnered the most support among young people, 23% of all who voted for the party. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) comes second with 19%. The Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) coalition is next with 14%. A tenth of those who voted for GERB-UDF are young people between 18 and 30 years old. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) garnered the least support from young people, 6%.

Considering only the vote of young people, it turns out that the first political force in the EP elections would be the CC-DB coalition with 18% support. It is followed by GERB-UDF and MRF with 17% each, TISP with 11%, Vazrazhdane with 9% and BSP with 5%.

Voting in local, national and European elections is a way to make voters' voices heard, according to 48% of young people in Bulgaria (41% in the EU).  This is followed by participation in street protests or demonstrations (32% of Bulgarian young people and 33% EU-wide), and opening or joining petitions (30% of young Bulgarians and EU-wide). 

The report registers a decrease in voter turnout in this country in several elections in a row in the last three years. Young people are part of a general trend of declining turnout linked to low trust in state institutions, the report said.

As factors influencing the low turnout, the report points to a shift of the debate on Europe towards issues of the national political agenda, the absorption of the campaign for the EP elections by the campaign for the early national elections and the weak or sporadic commitment of most formations to issues related to the European elections campaign.