Today Bulgaria elects its 45th National Assembly. This is the eleventh parliamentary election after the beginning of the democratic changes in the country in 1989. The first democratic vote in Bulgaria’s recent history was for Grand National Assembly and was held on June 10, 1990.

Today, representatives of 30 parties and coalitions are competing for the trust of voters. In comparison, 18 parties and 9 coalitions were allowed to participate in the previous parliamentary elections in 2017. The total number of polling stations in the country is over 11,000 and mobile ballot boxes are provided to people with mobility problems and for voters quarantined because of Covid-19. Machine voting is also possible in just over 9,300 of the sections.

Bulgaria is divided into 31 multi-member constituencies, in which 240 seats are distributed to MPs. This is based on the number of voters with permanent address in the region. The minimum number of seats that political pluralism must guarantee per region is 4.

A record number of Bulgarian citizens abroad are expected to vote. There gave been over 87,000 applications for voting at the place of residence submitted by Bulgarian compatriots for the election, which is almost double in comparison to 2017, when there were a little over 45,000 applications.

There are a total of 465 polling stations abroad, in 69 countries. With 371 polling stations abroad in the 2017 elections, more than 117,000 Bulgarians exercised their right to vote. Now voter turnout abroad is expected to be even higher.

The biggest number of sections abroad opened in Germany (69) and Spain (53). In the United Kingdom, the United States and Turkey, the maximum number of sections allowed by the Electoral Code for non-EU countries is 35.

English: Alexander Markov