/ world today news/ President Rumen Radev is the most trusted politician among Bulgarians. Among the parties, GERB retains first place in terms of trust, although the ratings of both the head of state and Boyko Borisov’s formation marked a serious drop.
The data are from a survey representative of the adult population of the country, conducted by SOVA HARIS in the period June 10-13, 2023, among 800 Bulgarian citizens using the standardized telephone interview method. The study was commissioned by the PIK agency.
Trust in given political parties has a direct bearing on the votes they could count on during parliamentary elections. The crisis in which the Bulgarian political system fell led to an outflow of voters.
We observe a decrease in trust in all political entities except Vazrazhdane. For now, GERB-SDS maintain their position as the most approved political entity – 13.2%. The party of Kostadin Kostadinov (12.4%) is now in second position according to this indicator, which has seen a significant rise. In third place is Democratic Bulgaria (10.9%), ahead of Continuing Change (10.4%), who are fourth.
We must note that the results of these two formations should not be seen as a summary, but as a spillover from one structure to the other.
The attitude of the supporters of the BSP and the “Left” was built in the same way. Activists from the “Left” who broke away from Cornelia Ninova already receive more trust (6.8%) compared to that of the mother party (6.1%). Of course, the distribution of these votes in a possible election also depends on a number of other indicators. “There is such a people” from the most approved formation three years ago, has now settled at a level that allows it to fight to overcome the electoral barrier (5.8%). Of the other political entities, so far only “Bulgarian Rise” has a more significant result – 3.6%.
The erosion in the attitude towards the political system as a whole also reflects on the trust in the leaders. The most approved politician in our country continues to be Rumen Radev (30.4%). However, if until recently the trust in him corresponded to a national political figure, it has now come down to the level of a party leader.
Vice President Iliana Yotova occupies the second position (18.8%), which shows that she successfully draws on the authority of the presidential institution. In third position is the new Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov (18.3%). He receives some credit of trust from the public. Maya Manolova traditionally gathers the sympathies of the left side of the political spectrum (18.0%). Kostadin Kostadinov is growing and is now in fifth position with 17.5%. We register a significant decline with the leader of GERB (16.8%).
The development of the situation surrounding the newly formed government will show whether Boyko Borisov has imposed a successful political line on the formation he leads or has made a serious leadership mistake. Maria Gabriel (16.7%), Asen Vasilev (15.2%), Kostadin Paskalev (14.4%) and Tomislav Donchev (13.7%) make up the top ten.
The trust they receive shows their serious presence in the political life of the country. For party leaders such as Kiril Petkov (12.7%), Cornelia Ninova (11.7%), Krasimir Karakachanov (10.6%), Slavi Trifonov (10.6%), Stefan Yanev (10.1%), Hristo Ivanov (9.4%) and Atanas Atanasov (9.2%) could be said to be more likely to meet the demands of their constituents.
Confidence in the still acting prosecutor Ivan Geshev (8.9%) shows that he already has a presence in the political sphere. Whether this position will develop depends to a large extent on how it will emerge from the current situation. In sociological polls, the leaders of the DPS – in this case Mustafa Karadayi (8.7%) and Delyan Peevski (5.4%) – traditionally receive lower shares of trust compared to those who voted for them in parliamentary elections. The reason is that this electorate is more difficult to access for sociological methods.
Rumen Hristov (6.4%) is expected to stand out more brightly within the coalition with a larger partner, and Tsvetan Tsvetanov (0.5%) needs a new vision so that he is not forgotten by the voters .
Trust in institutions has also fallen to very low levels.
The European Union (29.9%) and the Presidency (25.7%) stand out as points of reference for public opinion, but already with the trust of less than a third of adult Bulgarians. The voters give the third position to a foreign policy factor – NATO (20.8%). The Ministry of Defense (14.5%), the Government (12.9%) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (12.7%) have close results, which show that they have a lot of work to do to stabilize the citizens’ attitude towards them. At the Prosecutor’s Office (11.1%) and the Court (8.3%), the situation is even worse, but for them the problem is not caused by the current situation. According to public opinion, the crisis in this area has been observed for many years.
As for the current Parliament (5.8%), it clearly started from the bottom.
Changes in the judiciary do not cause much enthusiasm among the public in our country. Still, about a third of people (30.0%) have optimistic expectations. However, there are significantly more skeptics (48.2%).
After such frequent exercises at the polls, voters in Bulgaria are clearly united around the idea that the option with fully machine voting is preferable – 54.8% are “for”, against 23.1% – “against”.
Unprecedented events took place in Bulgarian political life, such as the formation of the government of Nikolay Denkov – Maria Gabriel and the release of the chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev. As expected, these events caused tremors in public attitudes.
Only 41.9% of voters state that if new extraordinary parliamentary elections are scheduled, they will vote for the same political force they voted for on 04/02/2023. For another political force, different from the one they voted for, are 12.2%. Voted, but will not vote in the next election – 11.2%. They did not vote, but 7.3% intend to vote in the next ones.
The most confused by the situation are the voters of GERB-SDS. Half of them would repeat their vote in support of Boyko Borisov’s coalition. Others, about a quarter, consider that they will vote for another party. The rest, about a quarter, say they will not vote.
There are also significant changes among those who voted for PP-DB. However, about 66% of them say that they would support them again. We can assume that the higher loyalty here is due to the presence in the coalition of Democratic Bulgaria, who hold the positions among their supporters. About a fifth of those who voted for the PP-DB coalition say that they would now choose another party. About 16% say they will not vote. The other political forces also saw some decline in support, but their electoral cores remained stable.
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