Ousted PM Borisov secures slim victory in Bulgaria election, fresh protests erupt

SOFIA - Reuters

Protestors hold torches during a protest in front of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia on May 12. AFP photo

Bulgarian ousted premier Boyko Borisov's party came first in tense elections May 12 but fell short of a majority, exit polls showed, setting the scene for political stalemate and fresh protests.

Three months after the biggest demonstrations in years prompted the former bodyguard to tender his government's resignation, Borisov's GERB party won between 30.4 and 34 percent of the vote, the exit polls showed.

In second place was the socialist BSP party on between 25.3 and 27.1 percent, followed by the Turkish minority party, Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), on 10-11.5 percent and the ultra-nationalist Ataka on 7.3-8.6 percent.

It remained unclear yet if a fifth party would pass the 4.0 percent threshold to win seats in the legislature in the European Union's poorest country.

The tight vote also made it impossible for pollsters to say if GERB could muster a slim majority together with Ataka - which used to back their previous majority cabinet but turned against them as the vote drew near. "There is no way for Ataka to back GERB," snapped Ataka's flamboyant leader Volen Siderov late May 11.

"Bulgaria needs stability and if parties are responsible they should back even a minority cabinet," GERB's campaign manager and ex-interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said.

The Socialists and their previous coalition partner MRF were also just short of majority in the 240-seat parliament, the exit polls suggested.

About 50 percent of the 6.9 million Bulgarians eligible to vote turned up at the stations May 12, the polls showed.

The first official results were not expected until late morning on May 13, with the allocation of parliamentary seats not until several days after that.

Protests erupt after first results

Some 150 protesters clashed with police as they tried to storm the elections main press centre shortly before parties were due to make their first official press conferences late Sunday. Stones were hurled at police, who used batons and shields to push back the crowd that shouted "Mafia!" There were no reports for injuries.

Bulgaria's winter of discontent saw seven people set themselves on fire, six of whom died. Six years after joining the European Union, almost a quarter of Bulgarians live below the official poverty line, living standards are falling and poverty is on the rise.

A prolonged stalemate was set to hit hard the country's fragile economy that grew just 0.8 percent in 2012 as unemployment soared up to almost 20 percent, according to unofficial estimates.

Many voters feel that politicians spend too much time bickering and lining their own pockets and not enough tackling the country's economic problems, corruption and inequalities.

Further poisoning the atmosphere were a mudslinging scandal about illegal wiretaps and allegations of vote-rigging during the election campaign, including on Saturday the discovery of 350,000 unaccounted-for ballot papers at a printing firm whose owner is reportedly close to Borisov's party.

Socialist party leader Sergey Stanishev said the discovery was "preparation for the total falsification of the elections," calling it a "scandal unseen in Bulgaria so far." Five opposition parties - excluding GERB - have commissioned an independent vote count by an Austrian agency, and it is possible that the official results will be challenged.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which sent its biggest monitoring mission to Bulgaria since its first post-communism elections in 1990, was due to report its findings on May 13.