Bulgaria: Ten Days before Elections Many Questions Remain Unanswered – Mediana Polling Agency

 

Ten days before the election, virtually all question marks remain in place. This is the main conclusion of the Mediana Agency from a survey conducted between March 16 and 23 among 1,004 eligible voters.

It is not possible to say what turnout to expect. Currently, about 3.4 million voters (60%) say they will go to the polls for sure. However, this declarative voting intentions dampen as the election day draws nearer.

At the same time, 11% of voters determined to vote are still hesitant about who to support. That means 350,000 voters are not sure about their choice, and possibly about whether to vote at all. The decision of these voters to abstain from voting or their massive preference of one political formation or another can dramatically change the picture of political attitudes in the country, according to Mediana.

For this reason, the question how many parties will make it to the parliament cannot be answered now. The data available so far suggests that they can be only four as well as eight. According to the agency, only four political formations are sure parliamentary forces - GERB, BSP, MRF and "There Is Such a People". Another four formations have chances, but they are all too close to the 4% barrier to enter parliament - "Stand up! Thugs Out!"; " Democratic Bulgaria"; and Volya/NFSB.

There is also no definitive answer as to which political formation will be first, second and third parliamentary force. So far GERB (27%) is ahead of BSP (23%), with a difference of about 150,000 votes in favour of the ruling party. The difference between BSP (23%) and There Is Such a People (13,5%) or about 300 000 votes and the one between MRF (11.3%) and the party of Slavi Trifonov is about 70,000.

Median acknowledges that there...

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