Political Analyst: GERB Benefited from Voter Mobilization

Professor Antony Todorov believes almost all of the 600 000 unexpected votes went for GERB. Photo by BGNES

Sofia Mayor Borisov's party GERB has benefited immensely from the mobilization of Bulgarian voters who previously did not intend to vote in the July 5 Parliamentary Elections.

This is the opinion of Bulgarian political analyst, Professor Antony Todorov, who told Novinite.com in an interview that some 600 000 more voters, who were not expected to vote according to earlier public opinion surveys, went to the polls Sunday, and that nearly all them supported GERB.

"I don't think that this was predominantly a "disapproval vote"; rather, it was an "approval vote". Those "mobilized" voters probably decided to support the emerging winner because they were afraid of long and hard negotiations for the new government, and of the likelihood of early elections in the fall", Professor Todorov believes.

In his words, the GERB party, which won some 1 700 000 votes, or about 40%, is a position in which it could dictate the creation of the new cabinet since both the Blue Coalition and the RZS party had declared their support for a GERB government.

Professor Todorov also pointed out that, while the Bulgarian Socialist Party of the outgoing Prime Minister Stanishev got more votes on Sunday than it did in the European Elections a month ago, it registered its lowest number of votes in Parliamentary Elections since 1990.