CEC announces EP election results / Bulgaria

The Central Electoral Commission in Sofia reported Monday morning that in Sunday's EP election in Bulgaria right-wing GERB Party won 24.48% of votes, left-wing Coalition for Bulgaria 18.59%, Liberal MRF 14.21%, nationalist ATAKA party 12.01%, centrist NMSS 8.00% and right-wing Blue Coalition 7.99%. Voter turnout has been 37.49%, which is 9% up on 2007. 2,3 million have cast a ballot out of a total of 6,7 voters. Leading political parties and coalitions gave press conferences after election results were formally announced. GERB Party leader Boiko Borisov said he was pleased with the preliminary results of the Euro-vote and re-confirmed his party was not going to coalesce after the general election in this country on 5 July. BSP leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev assessed positively the fact that election turnout had been higher than at the 2007 EP election in Bulgaria. He interpreted this as a sign that Bulgarian citizens are beginning to be aware of the significance of the European institutions. Movement For Rights and Freedoms leader Ahmed Dogan said he was pleased with his party's election account and pointed out that analysts' expectations of a big gap between winner and runner-up had failed to materialize.