On April 19, the country held another early parliamentary election. According to the current electoral legislation, voters in the electoral districts in the country had the right to rearrange the party lists by using a preference.
After the end of the election day, it became clear that a total of five formations will participate in the 52nd National Assembly. Deputies in the new parliament will be elected from Progressive Bulgaria, GERB-SDF, PP-DB, DPS and Vazrazhdane.
And to what extent their voters took advantage of the opportunity to rearrange the candidates on the lists in the different regions of the country, we will examine in this analysis. The data in it are from the 100% processed protocols of the regional election commissions, published on the website of the Central Election Commission.
The rules for preferential voting
According to the schedules of the Electoral Code, voters in the country have the right to support not only the formation they like, but also a specific candidate from its list. This is done by using a preference when voting.
Also, all votes for a specific party/coalition in which no preference is indicated are counted as cast for the leader of the list. These are the so-called “official” preferences.
Thus, in order to rearrange a list, it is necessary that the number of preferences cast for a given candidate is not less than 7% of all votes received by the party/coalition in the relevant electoral district (ED). The threshold for displacing the leader on the list is actually much higher, due to the presence of the above-described “official” preferences.
Preferences in the April 19 elections
Data from the protocols of the regional election commissions (before the Central Election Commission's amendments) show that the actual votes cast with preferences in the country are 1,254,993 or 41.1% of all voters.
The five formations entering parliament received a total of 2,507,937 votes (only from the sections in the country). 1,050,501 of their voters or 41.9% took advantage of the opportunity to vote with preference for their lists.
In these parliamentary elections, voters for the GERB-SDF lists gave their preference to the greatest extent - 52.3%, followed by PP-DB with 50.9%, which in recent days stirred up a coalition scandal over the rearrangements of their lists.
And in this campaign, the voters of the DPS - 32.9% - were the least likely to turn to preference. It is they who, over the years, have least often used the option to vote for their preferred candidates.
The map below shows the use of preferential voting for the 5 parties and coalitions that will have representatives in parliament. The information is presented for all electoral districts in the country.
According to the data from the protocols of the regional election commissions, preferential voting was used to the greatest extent in the Blagoevgrad region - 60% of the voters of the parties that participated in the elections took advantage of the preference. This was followed by Vratsa with 48.6% and Pazardzhik with 47.6%.
The preference was used least often by voters in the regions of Kardzhali - 13.4%, Targovishte - 28.2%, Silistra - 13.4%, 32.3%. Traditionally, these are the areas where voters most like the arrangement of the lists, as proposed by the party headquarters. And while in the elections until 2024, the winner there was the MRF, now only in Kardzhali has the movement maintained its lead over Progressive Bulgaria.
After preferences
There are a total of 125 candidates on the lists of the 5 parties and coalitions who have passed the 7% barrier. This also gives them a chance to change their places in the initial party arrangement. This number does not include the leaders of the lists in the individual regions. It will still be clear who exactly the deputies in the 52nd National Assembly will be and from which districts and formations they will be elected.
The GERB-SDS coalition has the most candidates who have passed 7% - 37. PP-DB follows with 34, DPS with 33. Eleven candidates are from the Vazrazhdane lists and ten from those of Progressive Bulgaria, who have collected 7% or more preferences.
The DPS has already made the first post-election reshuffles. In order for the party's favorites to enter, list leaders and candidates who had collected a high preferential vote withdrew. Thus, Hamid Hamid and Stanislav Atanasov will again be deputies in the 52nd National Assembly.
In these elections, only in one district did a party list leader change - that of GERB-SDF in Blagoevgrad. Stefan Apostolov - the son of the mayor of Simitli, managed to gather his “traditional” support in the district of 6,860 votes (23%) and displace former Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov from the first place.
An interesting point is that the party discipline of MRF supporters most often does not work in the “non-traditional” districts for the party. For example, in Sofia district, 76.7% of the votes for the Movement were cast with a preference. Pernik follows with 71.2% and Pleven with 62.2%, or many times higher than the national average for the party.
The data after these elections also show that the first places indicated by the formations are reserved for the party leaders and the main favorites of the political forces. The “Office preferences” that these candidates receive provide them with almost certain protection. In addition, it becomes double, because the leaders have the opportunity to be at the head of the lists in two electoral districts.
In this way, preferential voting practically turns into a race for second place. It guarantees a certain stability of the party structures, because it limits the possibility of imposing candidates other than those that the governing bodies have accepted. In addition, however, the “double insurance” for party leaders is somewhat hypocritical, if we also accept the principle that parliamentarians should represent the will of their voters to the greatest extent possible.