Bulgarian Opposition GERB Party Keeps Lead Ahead of 2009 Vote - Survey

The survey, conducted between December 5 and 15 by local Alpha Research polling agency, showed support for GERB at 21% and trending down gradually. The right-of-centre party led by Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov has been losing supporters in regional cities and among right-wing voters, Alpha Research said. Comparative approval ratings from previous polls were not immediately available.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) ranked second in the December poll with support of 15-16 percent, as public discontent with the three-party government fueled by the freezing of European Union aid over graft and mismanagement were the biggest drag on its approval rating, Alpha Research said.

In November the European Commission stripped Sofia of 220 million euro ($314 million) in pre-accession aid over mismanagement of funds. Over 300 million euro earmarked for Bulgaria under various EU pre-accession programmes remain frozen over suspicions of corruption.

Predominantly ethnic Turk MRF party, a junior partner in the government coalition, and opposition rightist Ataka party each got around six to seven percent support, above the four percent threshold required to enter parliament.

A further one to three parties also could make it to parliament depending on the economic and political situation. Opposition right-wing parties ODS and DSB have good chances to do this if they form an alliance, which will help them jointly win a considerably higher support in the vote than the sum of their current approval ratings of between 1.6% and 2.1%.

($ = 0.7003 euro)