If the presidential and vice-presidential elections had taken place last Sunday, October 17th, 51.2% of voters would have voted for Rumen Radev, 22.5% for Anastas Gerdjikov, 7.9% for Mustafa Karadayi and 6.2% for Lozan Panov. Among the others, the ones who stand out the most are: Kostadin Kostadinov – 3.1%, Milen Mihov – 1.6% and Veselin Mareshki – 1.1%. 2.7% would vote with “I do not support anyone”. The rest of the votes are distributed among other candidates. Among these candidates are Volen Siderov, Valeri Simeonov and others.
The data is from a Gallup International Balkan survey for the Bulgarian National Radio, conducted through means of face-to-face with tablets among 1,009 adult Bulgarians, during the period of October 10th until October 17th. The events of the recent days are not taken into account.
The declared activity for the presidential election has the following values: 56.4% say they will certainly vote in the presidential election. 54.2% say they will certainly vote in the parliamentary elections. More than 20% are those who say they would probably vote, but are not sure.
The data regarding the structure of attitudes and potential activity shows there is a possibility of the presidential election to end in a single round. However, in light of recent events, this possibility is not dominant. There are still four weeks remaining between the end of the poll and the November 14th election.
If the parliamentary elections were in mid-October, the current picture of electoral attitudes would look like this: 22.5% of voters would vote for GERB-UDF, 15.1% for BSP, 13.4% for “We continue the change” , 12.2% for “There is such people”, 11.2% for “Democratic Bulgaria” and 10.8% for MRF. These are also the formations that are certain in the next parliament from today’s point of view. Close to the electoral threshold is “Rise Up BG!” with 3.7%. Vazrazhdane and VMRO are also below the barrier, by 2.9% and 2.3%, respectively. The rest of the votes would be distributed to other formations.
A potential issue could be the fear of the virus, distress of machine voting, etc. All this, together with the crisis among the political and economic situation, makes the elections for both president and parliament difficult to predict in terms of turnout and the voting itself.
The sample is representative of the adult population of the country. The study was conducted with tablets, between October 10 and 17, among 1,009 people, using the “face to face” method. The absolute maximum error is ± 3.1% for 50% shares. 1% of the total sample is equal to about 55 thousand people.
