November 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's We Continue The Change, a recently formed anti-graft party, overtook the centre-right coalition of GERB and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) in Sunday's snap general election, preliminary official results showed on Monday.
We Continue The Change, led by former caretaker economy minister Kiril Petkov, won 25.97% of the votes against 21.42% for the GERB-UDF coalition led by three-times prime minister Boyko Borissov, according to data by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) based on 42.85% of the votes counted.
Five other parties cross the 4% threshold for entry into parliament, the preliminary results showed.
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which is drawing support mainly among Bulgarian ethnic Turks and Muslims, received 13.79% backing, followed by populist formation There Is Such a People (TISP) with 10.08%.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party attracted 9.99% support while the reformist Democratic Bulgaria coalition won 6.11% support. Nationalist and populist Revival received 5.19% of the votes.
TISP won the July 11 snap vote with a margin of less than a percentage point ahead of GERB-UDF.
The November 14 snap general elections were the country's third vote for parliament this year.
Commenting on the election results for public television BNT late on Sunday, Kiril Petkov said that We Continue The Change will hold government formation talks will all political formations in parliament except GERB-UDF and MRF.
Voter turnout stood at 25.58% by 4 p.m. local time on Sunday, four hours before polling stations closed, according to central electoral commission data.