A contested run-off between Iliana Yotova and Andrey Gyurov is looming after the first round of the presidential elections, said Prof. Mihail Konstantinov in the program “Bulgaria, Europe and the World in Focus“ on radio “Focus“. According to him, the extremely low voter turnout is a sign of serious alienation of citizens from the political system.
According to the final results announced by the CEC, 1,525,034 people voted in the first round. Iliana Yotova and Kiril Valchev received 528,951 votes, or 34.759%, and Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev – 486,232 actual votes, or 31.952%. The difference between the two presidential candidate pairs is 2.8 percentage points.
Since none of the candidates received more than half of the valid votes, and more than half of the voters did not cast their votes, the presidential elections will be decided in a runoff on November 1.
Low turnout is the main signal
Konstantinov, who is the director of “Electoral Analysis and Forecasts“ at Gallup International Balkan and a former member of the Central Election Commission, defined the turnout of 23% as the lowest in Bulgaria's electoral history.
“The turnout is outrageously low – this is the lowest turnout in the entire electoral history of Bulgaria“, said Prof. Mihail Konstantinov.According to him, the large drop in the number of voters raises the question of the legitimacy of the future president. He described the result as a “great warning to the political class“ and pointed to the accumulated public tension as one of the reasons for the refusal of many citizens to participate in the vote.
Dispute over the influence of machine voting
Konstantinov also linked the low turnout to the decision for 100% machine voting in the large sections. According to him, this has repelled at least half a million voters, citing estimates from his colleagues of about 700,000 people.
He stated that in his opinion, a large part of those who did not vote were supporters of Iliana Yotova. Konstantinov described the machine voting as a mistake in electoral practice and said that the decision had harmed the political forces supporting Yotova's candidacy.
In his analysis of the runoff, he contrasted the psychological advantage of the catching-up candidate with the larger potential reserve of votes for his opponent. Regardless of the result on November 1, Konstantinov called for the acceptance of common responsibility in society.
„We will continue to live together. And we have to get used to this“, said Prof. Mikhail Konstantinov.
Sources: focus-news.net