A total of five parties would win seats in the new parliament, according to the results of a recent poll by Gallup International. Four of them can be certain of being represented in the parliament - CEDB, BSP, MRF and Ataka while the fifth party, Kuneva's BFC, is very close to overcoming the 4% barrier.

Centre-right CEDB remains the leader with 22.8% of all votes but it is followed very closely by socialist BSP with 19.9%. Both parties have gained popularity since March. The third most popular party is radical Ataka which now has 5.7% of the votes (as compared to only 5% in the previous poll). The fourth party that is certain to secure seats in parliament is ethnic MRF (with 4.9%). Former European Commissioner Kuneva’s Bulgaria for the Citizens (FC) also has a good chance of entering the parliament as it currently has 3.9%.

Gallup predicts between 3 and 3.6 million Bulgarians will vote at the upcoming parliamentary election in May. This equals to around 58% voter turnout (if we presume that the actual number of registered voters is around 6.2mn) which is lower compared to what other polling agencies predict (NCIOM - 59%, Mediana - 62%) and results in more distortion of the proportional representation (parties receive a much higher share of the seats than votes). We note that turnover close to the 4 million mark will favour smaller parties and likely result in 6 parties gaining representation. In contrast, a lower turnout will concentrate the seats in parliament in 4 or 5 parties giving an advantage for the largest two – CEDB and BSP but also to MRF, which has a strong core following and could be instrumental in forming a governing coalition. 

According to the poll, the difference between the two leading parties, CEDB and BSP, is small and both parties receive a similar number of seats. In this case, no two-party coalition is possible* resulting in a deadlock and new elections later on in the year.

*_{We exclude the possibility of a CEDB-BSP coalition. The two parties represent the two sides of the political spectrum and a coalition between them would only be possible in a national crisis or a continued political deadlock.}