Bulgarian election maps

[GMantis]

Due to old images no longer displaying on the forum, I've decided to re-post the maps of election results by municipalities, along with some that have been made after the thread was last used. And some of the maps have undergone some editing, mainly for the sake of consistency.

On all maps red is for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), yellow is for the minority, mainly Turkish dominated Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and blue stands for the main right-wing party in each election. This was the Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) from 1991 to 1997, National Movement Simeon II (NDSV) from 2001 to 2005 and Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) from 2007. Other colors are specific for each map.

All the maps shows, apart from the results in the Bulgarian municipalities, also the results of the 24 districts of Sofia municipality.

The first post is for the parliamentary elections between 1991 and 2021.

1991

This is to date the closest parliamentary election after 1990, with SDS leading BSP by just 1%.

1994

This was BSP's best ever result after 1990 and the most municipalities won by any party in an election- 233 out of 264.

1997

In this election SDS achieved the largest result of any political party after 1989 - 52.3. Euroleft was a breakaway party from BSP.

2001

This was the first election after 1990 in which neither BSP or SDS finished first and it marked more or less the end of the two party system that had been established after 1989.

2005

BSP's last victory to date. DSB is a breakaway party from SDS. BNS was an electoral alliance of three parties, of which only VMRO still exists.

In 2009, 209 seats were elected by the proportional system used in all other elections, while 31 were elected by first past the post (FPTP) plurality voting. The first map shows the results of the proportional elections and the second the FPTP ones.

2009 - Proportional results

This was the first of GERB's five consecutive victories. LIDER was the personal party of a Bulgarian coal mine and plant oligarch. Blue Coalition  was an alliance between SDS, DSB and some minor parties.

2009 - FPTP results


Attack is a nationalist party founded in 2005 and RSZ was another (more successful) personal party.

2013

Notable for being the only election after which the first party failed to form a government; instead a supposedly technocratic government was formed by BSP and DPS, with the tacit support of Attack.

2014

A crushing victory for GERB and the worst performance for BSP to date. RB was an alliance between five right-wing parties, including SDS and DSB. BBT was yet another personal party.

2017

Yet another GERB victory, though more narrow than in 2014. A notable trend that is best seen here is GERB taking over many former strongholds of BSP and some of DPS (helped here by the split in DPS). DOST was a breakaway party from DPS, which led to DPS's worst result since 1997.

April 2021



The fifth (and final) consecutive GERB victory, with their weakest result until this point. Despite that, due to the continuing growth of the GERB "turnout machine" (especially in many former BSP strongholds) and the utter collapse of BSP, GERB won nearly as many municipalities as in 2009. DB is a coalition of conservative opponents of GERB which was very successful in Sofia, but was hardly present outside of the capital. ITN, yet another personal party (this time led by musician and showman Slavi Trifonov) finished second. VMRO is a nationalist party that has generally run as part of various coalitions (entering parliament as part of the United Patriots in 2017) while almost managing to enter parliament in this election on their own. GERB was unable to form a goverment, while ITN proved unwilling to seriously try (likely hoping for a better results the next time around). So for the first time in modern Bulgarian history no government could be formed after the election, leading to parliament being dissolved and a snap election called.


July 2021

ITN won, the first party other than GERB to do so since 2005. However ITN again failed (or were unwilling, it's debatable) to form a government, leading to the third parliamentary election in 2021.

November 2021

The deadlock was finally broken, after PP - moderate reformist party founded by former ministers of the caretaker government that was appointed after the April election - managed to gather much of the anti-GERB vote, finished first and formed a coalition with other anti-GERB parties. BSP had their worst ever placing (fourth) and lowest percentage of votes ever received and won the fewest municipalities of any of their elections, losing some that they had always won before. Ironically, they still managed to enter the government as part of the coalition. An interesting trend is that GERB largely assumed the former position of BSP by winning nearly half of all municipalities, while losing all significant cities.

[GMantis]

This post is about the presidential elections. Unfortunately, there are maps only for the elections between 2006 and 2016, since data for earlier elections isn't available at the moment. All presidential elections to date have included a second round between the top two candidates of the first round.

2006 I round

Parvanov was the incumbent president, backed by BSP and DPS, Beronov was backed by DSB and SDS, and Siderov is the leader of Attack party. Parvanov achieved the best results of any presidential candidate in both rounds.

2006 II round

In this round, Parvanov was also supported by NDSV.

2011 I round


Plevneliev was the GERB candidate, while Kalfin was supported by BSP and unofficially by DPS.

2011 II round

Plevneliev won the election by the narrowest margin of any of the post-1990 presidential elections. DPS openly backed Kalfin in the second round.

2016 I round

Radev was an independent candidate supported by BSP, Tsacheva was the GERB candidate, Karakachanov is the leader of VMRO, Mareshki is the leader of another personal party (which actually entered parliament in 2017), Oresharski, prime minister between 2013 and 2014, was backed by DPS and Traykov was backed by the Reformist Block (RB).

2016 II round

Radev's victory was the second largest of all presidential elections and arguably more significant since he defeated the candidate of the ruling party rather than a marginal nationalist leader. DPS supported Radev in this round.

2021 I round


Radev ran for reelection backed by BSP, the new coalition PP ("We Continue the Change") which won the concurrent parliamentary elections and ITN. For the sake of consistency, red is used to represent Radev's results, though at this point he had largely distanced himself from the BSP and was more closely aligned with the PP - a party founded by two ministers Radev appointed to a caretaker government in May 2021. Gerdzhikov was the GERB candidate, while DPS nominated for the first time their own candidate, party leader Mustafa Karadayi.

2021 II round

Radev again received the support of BSP, PP and ITN. Apart from GERB, Gerdzhikov was also backed in the second round by DPS, though they did little to turn out their voters, allowing Radev to win even in some traditional DPS strongholds. With Radev winning the support of nearly everyone but the core electorate of GERB and DPS, he achieved the second best result in all presidential elections, improving upon his 2016 achievement.

[GMantis]

This post is about the European parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. Generally considered less important than national elections in Bulgaria, they have been characterized by low turnout (helping DPS with its massive turnout machine) and great results for marginal parties.

2007

This was DPS best result of any national election and they came within 1% of coming first.

2009

This election was seen largely as a rehearsal for the parliamentary elections a month later, though in the end it failed to anticipate the scale of GERB's victory.

2014

ABV is a breakaway party from BSP, founded by former president Parvanov

2019

DB stands for Democratic Bulgaria, a new center-right coalition (though it includes DSB) that performed well at the 2021 parliamentary elections.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Seems like SDS (and later GERB, though not to the same extent?) support basically radiates outwards from Sofia?

[GMantis]

Seems like SDS (and later GERB, though not to the same extent?) support basically radiates outwards from Sofia?

Yes, Sofia and a few of the largest cities, especially Plovdiv and Varna.

[Ex-Assemblyman Steelers]

What happens with the government formation?

[Beagle]

What happens with the government formation?

I posted the following in the elections thread (and it's probably better for this discussion to move there):

Although nobody expects the new parliament to serve a full term, as long as ITN propose any government at all - even if Trifonov emerges from covid isolation with an announcement that Hoxhaism is now the official state policy and that Bulgaria will form a bulwark against revisionism - it will get at least 121 votes in parliament. In part because of self-preservation, in part because of willingness to give enough rope for ITN to hang themselves, but all 5 non-ITN parties have pronounced  their willingness to support in some way the formation of a government by ITN. And it seems that ITN are willing to try.
 

Other than BSP backtracking in their support, there isn't much new to report. If ITN proposes a government, as of today it appears that they can rely on the support of DB and IS!MV! (92 seats between them). From their limited public statements, ITN's preferred course of action would be for BSP and/or DPS to fail to register for the sitting and for the government to be elected by 92 to 75 with however many abstaining*. If - as seems likely - their government would have to rely on the support of one of the toxic status quo parties, ITN wouldn't want to sully their reputation and would not put a government to the vote.

* but if both BSP and DPS register for the sitting, the vote would fail**, as the government needs the support of over half the MPs present
** technically GERB have promised that if the proposed government is up to 10 votes short, they would make up the deficit in the name of stability, but this is posturing and nobody is taking it seriously

If ITN does not propose a government or if it fails the vote, the ball passes in the president's court, who has to give the third and final mandate to one of the other parties. For a number of reasons Radev will almost certainly pick DB, but despite the legal loophole that DB wants to exploit (if the elected government resigns immediately after their election, parliament is not dissolved), there is practically zero chance to avoid early elections as soon as July.

[GMantis]

The post about the results of the parliamentary elections (at the top of this page) has been updated with the results of the three elections of 2021.

[GMantis]

The post about the presidential elections has been updated with the results of the 2021 presidential election.