Bulgarians went to the polls yesterday in a parliamentary election expected to oust Bulgaria’s Socialist-led coalition and elevate the center-right party of Sofia’s popular mayor to power.
Polls opened at 6am and were to close at 7pm, with 6.8 million eligible voters choosing between 4,500 candidates from 14 political parties and four coalitions for parliament’s 240 seats.
The latest opinion polls have suggested Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev will pay the price for the failure of his corruption-tainted government to handle an economy hit hard by the global downturn.
His main opponent, Sofia Mayor Boiko Borisov, is tipped to score an easy victory, although possibly by too narrow a margin to form a government without seeking a coalition partner.
Borisov’s center right party has been riding high on promises to jail corrupt officials and crime bosses.
Despite securing EU membership, Stanishev’s government has been widely blamed for failing to improve the quality of everyday life in the Balkan country of 7.6 million, the poorest member of the EU.
Although unemployment stands at a relatively low 7 percent, opinion polls say more than a third of Bulgarians fear they might lose their job in the near future. And while wage increases have pushed the average salary to 300 euros (US$420), it remains the lowest in the 27-member EU.
The main reason for the eroding support, however, has been the government’s perceived failure to deal with crime and corruption.
This led Brussels to freeze millions in aid last year over fraud.
Many Bulgarians see politicians from the Socialist Party, as well as from its junior coalition partner — the mainly Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms — as being part of the problem rather than a credible solution.
Last month’s European Parliament elections in Bulgaria saw political parties throw accusations at each other of vote-buying, prompting prosecutors to launch several investigations. The maximum jail sentence for vote-buying in Bulgaria is six years.
Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were to oversee yesterday’s vote.
Borisov and his Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party are tipped to gain up to 32 percent of the votes, with Stanishev’s Socialists lagging behind with 22 percent, a poll conducted by the National Public Opinion Center showed on Saturday. No margin of error was provided, but polls of this type in Bulgaria usually have a 3 percent margin of error.
Opinion polls suggest no party is likely to gain enough of a majority to govern alone. If Borisov wins, the Blue Coalition has indicated it could join him to help form a government. But analysts predict that an even broader coalition will be needed to secure a majority.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS