Central Electoral Commission (CEC) spokesman Tzvetozar Tomov (R) at a CEC press briefing on 11 September 2014 in Sofia. Photo BGNES
With 94% of the votes counted, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leads in none of Bulgaria’s regions, the Central Electoral Commision (CEC) said on Monday.
Centre-right GERB has emerged as the leading political force in all but five regions with mainly ethnic Turk population in northeastern and southern Bulgaria where the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) has won most votes in Sunday’s early parliamentary elections, CEC spokesman Tsvetozar Tomov told BNR radio station.
According to the latest results, GERB had 32.61% support, the Socialist had 15.25% and DPS was third with 14.91%. The right-wing Reformist Bloc was fourth with 8.91%.
DPS has also won most votes in polling stations abroad (47.5%). With 94% of the votes counted, GERB was the second biggest political force there with 25.7% followed by the Reformist Bloc with 10.3%.
According to Tomov, DPS is very likely to emerge as the second biggest political force in Bulgaria’s 43rd Parliament, ahead of BSP.
Tomov also didn’t rule out the possibility of left-wing ABV party led by former President Georgi Parvanov falling below the 4% threshold for entering Parliament, thus reducing the number of political parties in the new chamber to seven.
ABV has won 4.18% of the vote, according to preliminary results based on 87% of the votes counted.
The CEC spokesman said it is possible final results of the vote to be released by the close of day on Monday.