Parliamentary Elections, 9 June 2024

Bulgaria held its sixth early parliamentary election in three years on 9 June 2024. The parliament consists of 240 seats which are proportionally elected on a 4 year-term (ACE). The responsible election management body is the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), which consists of 15 commissioners appointed by the president. Commissioners are chosen to reflect the balance of political parties’ representation in the parliament. However, this has been difficult to accomplish recently due to several snap elections (OSCE 2024).

Constitutional amendments were passed in 2023, including some changes to electoral policies. Following international standards, candidates with dual citizenship are now allowed to stand for parliamentary elections, but need to have resided in the country for 18 months. The amendments further defined how long elections need to be held  following the appointment of a caretaker government (OSCE 2024).

The European Parliament raised concerns about Russian interference in the form of widespread online disinformation prior to the election, as well as strategically placed Russian-owned properties in Bulgaria (European Parliament 2024). At the end of the campaign period, the Bulgarian Council for Electronic Media sent in 32 alerts to the CEC, regarding breaches of the Electoral Code in online campaigns (Marinova 2024). Prior to the elections, some Bulgarian citizens felt distrust in political parties and that their votes would not matter (Nenov 2024). Before the elections in June, only 21 per cent of Bulgarians trusted the Cabinet (Sofia Globe 2023). 

OSCE-ODIHR observers addressed concerns about the accessibility of electoral information, as well as financing of political campaigns. Observers noted that the information available to voters from the CEC was not comprehensive. Additionally, concerns were raised about electoral participation of minority groups, especially Roma – voter registration is tied to the voter’s registered address, which for many Roma voters is a challenge. An estimated 245,000 voters were unable to participate in the elections due to these restrictions (OSCE 2024). 

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) also monitored the elections, noting that the elections were generally free and fair. However, concerns were raised regarding vote-buying, especially corporations trying to impact the electoral outcome. PACE observed that ballot secrecy was not fully guaranteed, largely because of issues with electronic voting machines in which voters could see the former voter’s ballot. Observers also noted that there was lack of trust in the electoral process and that election campaigns both on- and offline had a negative tone (PACE 2024). 

The incumbent centrist GERB-SDS coalition received the largest share of votes, 23.99 per cent, thereby securing a relative majority of 68 seats in parliament. However, no coalition could build a majority (Kobeszko 2024; AP 2024). As a result, President Radev appointed Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva as caretaker Prime Minister, but incumbent caretaker Dimitar Glavchev refused. His refusal resulted in postponing the next snap election (Novinite 2024) which was held as scheduled in October 2024. 

Voter turnout was 34.41 per cent, down 4.7 per cent from 39.11 per cent in 2023. This was the lowest electoral participation rate since democratization in 1991 (International IDEA n.d.).  Although the share of female MPs increased by three percent to 27% compared to the previous election, it remains below the 30% target set by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1995 for women's representation in national legislature (Bulgarian News Agency 2024).