Bulgaria's GERB-UDF holds slim lead over TISP ahead of July 11 snap vote - polls

The GERB-UDF coalition, led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, will be backed by 19.7% of the respondents determined to cast a ballot on Sunday, while 18.8% plan to support TISP led by showman Slavi Trifonov, a survey conducted by Sofia-based MarketLinks polling agency showed. The survey, commissioned by private broadcaster bTV, was conducted between June 18 and June 25 and the results were made public on July 5.

According to MarketLinks, the GERB-UDF coalition is losing its influence among a small segment of society, but large enough to put into question an election victory. TISP is now definitely the second political force with the potential to become the first one, depending on the mobilisation of its supporters.

In May, Bulgarian president Rumen Radev dissolved parliament and called snap elections for July 11, after none of the three biggest political formations that entered the National Assembly after the April 4 regular vote - GERB-UDF, TISP and Socialists, failed to assemble a government coalition. A total of six political parties entered parliament after the April vote, with each of them having neither enough seats to govern on its own, nor enough partners to try to put together a coalition cabinet.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which formed a coalition with several smaller left-wing parties after the April 4 election, and reformist Democratic Bulgaria coalition followed with 16.9% and 12.5%, respectively, in the June survey, MarketLinks said.

One more formation has a chance to cross the 4% threshold and enter the next parliament, according to the MarketLinks survey. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), which is drawing support mainly from ethnic Turk population, will attract 9.5% of the votes, the poll showed.

Rise Up! Thugs Out!, which organised a series of anti-government protests last year, and nationalist coalition Bulgarian Patriots comprising VMRO, Volya and NFSB parties, will receive support from 3.4% and 2.9% of the voters, respectively.

As many as 58% of the respondents in the MarketLinks survey said they will certainly vote on Sunday, while 9% said they will certainly not vote.

According to the results of another survey published by Mediana polling agency a week before the snap vote, 22.5% of the respondents who said they will vote on July 11 will cast their ballot for GERB-UDF. As many as 21.7% will vote for TISP, 20.6% for BSP, 11.1% for DPS and 10.0% for Democratic Bulgaria. The Rise Up! Thugs Out and Bulgarian Patriots coalitions ranked sixth and seventh with 5.1% and 4.8% support, respectively.

The Mediana survey was conducted between June 26 and July 2 among 920 people above the age of 18.

Mediana said that GERB-UDF supporters are highly motivated to vote. This is not the case with the supporters of the other political formations, with many of them saying that they are still hesitant whether and for whom they will vote for, the polling agency noted.

The results of a survey by Sofia-based Gallup International Balkan polling agency published on June 17 indicated that if the snap election was held on that day, TISP would win 21.2% of the votes, just 0.2 percentage points higher compared to the support for the GERB-UDF coalition. The agency also said that 15.9% of the votes would go to BSP and 12.1% to Democratic Bulgaria. According to the survey, six political formations would probably enter the next parliament, as DPS would attract 11.9% of the votes, followed by Rise Up! Thugs Out! with 5.8%.

Candidates from 23 parties and coalitions will run in the July 11 snap election, compared to 30 in the April 4 vote.