October 3 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria’s centre-right coalition of GERB and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov won 25.33% of the votes in Sunday's snap general election, the country's fourth parliamentary vote in 18 months, final official results showed on Monday.
Seven parties crossed the 4% threshold for entry into parliament amid record-low voter turnout, according to data by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) based on 100% of the ballots counted.
We Continue The Change (WCC), led by former prime minister Kiril Petkov, received the support of 20.20% of the voters. WCC won Bulgaria's previous early general elections, in November 2021.
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which traditionally draws support mainly from Bulgarian ethnic Turks and Muslims, received 13.76% backing, followed by the populist, nationalist and pro-Russian formation Vazrazhdane (Revival) with 10.17%.
Two of the former ruling coalition members, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the reformist Democratic Bulgaria coalition, won 9.30% and 7.44% of the vote, respectively.
The only other formation to enter parliament is Bulgaria Rising, a political party recently founded by former caretaker prime minister Stefan Yanev, which obtained 4.62% of the vote, according to final CEC data.
Populist formation There Is Such a People (TISP), headed by showman Slavi Trifonov who withdrew his ministers from Petkov's cabinet causing the most recent political crisis, got 3.83%, thus falling short of the voter minimum. TISP won the snap vote in July 2021 with a margin of less than a percentage point ahead of GERB-UDF.
As many as 87,634 of voters indicated that they did not support any of the 22 parties and six coalitions running for the 240-seat unicameral National Assembly.
A little over 2.5 million people of voting age participated in the elections, out of Bulgaria's population of 6.5 million, according to latest census data announced on Monday, CEC chairman Tsvetozar Tomov said as seen in a video by private broadcaster Nova TV.
Voter turnout stood at 25.58% by 4 p.m. local time on Sunday, four hours before polling stations closed, CEC data showed.
Polling agency Alpha Research put final voter turnout at 37.8%.