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Cause and Effect in European Politics and Law

GERB is a leading party, NDSV - unrecognised and the DPS and BSP are with equal score

Adelina Marini, May 25, 2009

The Blue coalition performed with the serious 10.74 % of the votes in a simulation research of Barometer Info, presented today. According to Nikolay Nikolov from the agency, this score is absolutely real because the problems around the registration of the coalition have shown the voters that the parties in it are united. Again the leading party if GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) with 25.87 % in the research which the agency conducts for the 4th time. It is actually a simulation of real voting as in Sofia there were 4 ballot sections.

Asked by euinside how realistic are these results against the background of what the leader of DPS Ahmed Dogan said that the position of GERB is not real because the sociologists do not take into account the small villages and towns, Mr. Nikolov explained that, just the opposite - the results of GERB are very real. But he agreed that in small villages GERB is not well known while in big towns and especially in Sofia they perform the best. RZS (Order, rule of law and justice) of Yane Yanev are pulling votes from ATAKA and are about 5 % and ATAKA itself gained 8.26 % of the votes.

Another surprise of this research is the almost equal performance of Coalition for Bulgaria (with main party the BSP - Bulgarian Socialists Party) and the DPS (Movement for rights and freedoms), 18.02 % and 16.36 % respectively. With equal positions are also RZS and coalition "NAPRED" (meaning forward) which gained 5.54 %.

And one more surprise in the research - the performance of the NDSV (National movement for stability and progress) of Simeon Saxecobourggotta. Nikolov explained that this is the only party which has a problem with being distinguishes because in the ballot-paper it is written with its whole name which is relatively new. Before it was National movement Simeon the Second. And now with this whole new name people do not recognise that this is NDSV. Nikolov ascribes this to bad political marketing because the result of the yellow party is 2.15 %.

Unrealistic are the results of the "LIDER" party (sounds like LEADER) because they've registered 1.74 % but if we remember their last results at the partial local elections last year, it is not quite clear whether this party will manage to motivate the workers at the factories of the leader of the party Hristo Kovachki to vote for him (there were allegations then that he forced his workers to vote for him, threatened with losing their jobs).

This research doesn't give any picture of voters' activity. It is expected that next week the agency will publish such data.