Veselin Mareshki

For the first time, an opinion poll has projected a slight edge for the Bulgarian Socialist Party on center-right GERB, the party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, in the event of a hypothetical election.

If parliamentary elections were held today, GERB would win 32.6% of the votes of people who are determined to vote, while BSP will get 28.8%, showed the results of the latest survey of NOVA and Alpha Research agency, presented on Nova TV. No single party would have an independent majority and possible coalitions would be difficult to form.

Five parties would make it to Parliament in the early election this spring, a poll based on attitudes in mid-January shows.

The parties jumping above the 4% threshold include conservative GERB, socialist BSP, liberal, ethnic Turk-dominated DPS, the recently forged nationalist alliance United Patriots, and Volya, the new party of Varna-based businessman Veselin Mareshki.

GERB, the main party in Bulgaria's outgoing government, will ask some thousands of its members on the coalition policy it should pursue after the early election due this spring.

Emailed polls will require of more than 20 000 GERB members to have a say on which the party's "natural partners" are, according to daily 24 Chasa.

Veselin Mareshki, the entrepreneur-turned-politician, has said his newly set up party will be the big surprise of the snap general poll.

"We continue fighting the fuels cartel, since it is the cartel plundering the state in the worst way," the pharmaceutics boss with several fuel stations in his hometown Varna has told the Bulgarian National Radio.

The lead of GERB, Bulgaria's biggest party led by outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has shrunk drastically, a fresh survey shows.

The election of Rumen Radev as Bulgaria's next President reveals he was the focus of the protest sentiments displayed in the first round, an expert has said.

As Bulgarians are heading to the polls on Sunday, they will vote for President based on what they saw and heard in five weeks of campaigning.

Support from parties and candidates who fared well in the election's first round, however, may also play a part in this decision as some of these have endorsed or indicated preference for either of the candidates.

The independent candidate supported by BSP for President Rumen Radev receives the vote of 49.6% of the voters on the eve of the second round of elections on Sunday.

A total of 39.1% of voters will vote for GERB's candidate Tsetska Tsacheva, showed data of Alpha Research. 11.3% of the participants of the survey stated that they will not vote.

Socialist-backed candidate Rumen Radev won the first round of Bulgaria's presidential elections, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has said.

The CEC's announcement confirms earlier data with 100% of the vote counted.