The votes in the early parliamentary elections on October 27 outlined an even more diverse parliament. The initial forecasts were for a 9-party National Assembly, but the results that the CEC announced after processing all the protocols brought a cold shower to the members and sympathizers of the Velichie party. With a result of 3.999% the party’s representatives could not enter the parliament, which requires crossing the 4% threshold. So, Bulgaria will have an eight-party National Assembly with GERB-SDS, PP-DB, "Vazrazhdane", ITN, BSP, the two factions of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms - Alliance for Rights and Freedoms and DPS-New Beginning, and MECH party.

The vote of Bulgarians abroad has an important influence on the distribution of political forces in the Bulgarian parliament, especially when it comes to the results of the smaller parties. Here we must also add the vote of the Bulgarian Turks, who are traditionally very active in their participation in the elections. That is why Turkey is the country where the largest number of polling stations are opened - for the latest early vote they were 168.

• Voting abroad for the Bulgarian parliamentary election finishes

It was these voters who determined the leading political force in the preferences of Bulgarians abroad - with 100% processed protocols of voting abroad, our compatriots chose "Alliance for Rights and Freedoms" in first place with 22.65%. After them is the PP-DB coalition with 20.80%, followed by "Vazrazhdane" with 13.29% and "DPS - New Beginning" with 9.96%. After that comes the real winner of the elections - GERB-SDS with 8.11% of the votes abroad, followed by "Velichie" with 7.74%, ITN with 7.12% and MECH with 4.80 %.

The vote of Bulgarians abroad this time did not manage to make the central news, sociologist Parvan Simeonov from the Gallup International Balkan agency pointed out in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. Asked to comment on the results of elections abroad and their impact on the general post-election picture, he focused on the so-called "small parties" entering the race with promises of profound changes to the status quo. In this sense, it is important to pay attention to several things:

"I am personally somewhat surprised by the fact that formations like Velichie and MECH do not have very high results abroad, as it is precisely this type of formations that Bulgarians abroad are looking for, and they accordingly direct their campaigns there,” Simeonov says. “However, their result remained more or less proportional to that in the country. It seems that the voters followed the calls for more activity."

The sociologist also analysed the differences in the votes of citizens at home and abroad who chose to support the DPS-New Beginning party, behind which stands the breakaway co-chairman of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms Delyan Peevski, and the coalition of the movement's honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan - Alliance for Rights and Freedoms. Bulgarians abroad, especially in Turkey, voted en masse for Dogan's party.

"The explanation is simple: DPS-New Beginning is further away from that ethnic genesis of DPS. Therefore, ethnic Turks with Bulgarian citizenship who live in Turkey today would hardly prefer DPS-New Beginning, although it can be seen that there are quite a few votes for the party there as well.”

Regarding the personality of Ahmed Dogan, we should know that:

"The expatriate communities in Turkey have never been unconditional supporters of Dogan, but they have been loyal," the sociologist says. It is also important to recall the official Turkish position, which is for non-interference in Bulgarian internal affairs and political life, as this is apparently respected. In the past there was always some tension between the official Turkish point of view and that of Dogan because he was never completely in sync with the official narrative. Therefore, from now on, it will be very interesting what the attitude of the Turkish factors towards the two formations would be."

However, there is something new. Compared to the previous elections, when between 60,000 and 70,000 votes came from there, now the votes are less than 50,000. This shows that, at least in Turkey, the clash between the two formations repelled some voters, Parvan Simeonov said and added:

"In Bulgaria, something else happened. The clash heated up both sides and their combined result is over 400,000 votes, which is an unprecedented amount. If they were together and had such a result, they would surely be the second political force."

Publication in English: Al. Markov

Photos: BGNES, BTA