Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

elects a

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

—the

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

—and a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

on a national level. The president is elected for a five-year term by the people directly. The

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

(''Narodno Sabranie'') has 240 members elected for a four-year term by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

in multi-seat

constituencies An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

with a 4% threshold. Bulgaria has a

multi-party In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional r ...

system in which usually no party receives a required majority and parties have to collaborate to form governments, generally via

confidence and supply In parliamentary system, parliamentary democracies based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply is an arrangement under which a minority government (one which does not control a majority in the legislature) receives the support of one ...

or coalition agreements.

Result in history

The results of the June 1990 parliamentary elections:

Parliamentary elections

Parliamentary elections have been held in Bulgaria since 1879. There was a period when partisan politics was banned from 1934 to 1944; in the wake of the

Bulgarian coup d'état of 1934 Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

and the sequential personal rule of Tsar Boris III. There was also period of

single party A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single political party controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or en ...

system between 1945 and 1989, during the

People's Republic of Bulgaria The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; , NRB; ) was the official name of Bulgaria when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; ) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agraria ...

, during which only candidates sanctioned by authorities could run. This, in practice, gave the

Bulgarian Communist Party The Bulgarian Communist Party ( Bulgarian: Българска комунистическа партия (БΚП), Romanised: ''Bŭlgarska komunisticheska partiya''; BKP) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria f ...

and its collaborators a monopoly on power. Until 1945 there was no

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

for the women. The table below show the elections since 1990, when the government became a democratic republic. All elections since 1991 have had 240 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies with a 4% threshold. The two elections that differed from this model was the

1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...

Grand National Assembly election, where 400 representatives were elected: half by proportional representation and half by

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

. The other exception was the

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

election when 209 representatives were elected by proportional representation and 31 through first past the post; seats corresponding to the provinces and the largest cities. The latest parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 27 October 2024.

Parliamentary election results

Recent elections

June 2024 Bulgarian parliamentary election

Presidential election

Presidential elections have been held since 1992. From 1996 onwards, presidential elections have been held every five years.

European Parliament elections

Past European Parliament elections since 2007

* 2007 European Parliament election in Bulgaria * 2009 European Parliament election in Bulgaria * 2014 European Parliament election in Bulgaria * 2019 European Parliament election in Bulgaria

Referendums

Four nationwide referendums have been held in Bulgaria since it gained its De Facto independence in 1878: * On 19 November 1922 the question was if criminals from the three previous wars were to be prosecuted;Bulgarien, 19. November 1922 : Anklage gegen Kriegsverbrecher
Direct Democracy * On 8 September 1946 the question was if Bulgaria was to remain a monarchy or become a republic; * On 16 May 1971 the nation's approval of a new constitution was asked; * On 27 January 2013 the question was if Bulgaria should develop its nuclear power by building a new nuclear power plant.Q&A: Bulgaria's nuclear energy referendum
BBC News, 25 January 2013Bulgarians vote in referendum on nuclear energy
Deutsche Welle * On 25 October 2015 the question was if Bulgaria should introduce electronic voting. * On 6 November 2016 voters were asked three questions. The questions were: Whether they supported limiting public funding of political parties; the introduction of compulsory voting in elections and referendums; and changing the electoral system for the National Assembly to the two-round system. Several regional referendums have been held as well.

Local elections

Recent elections

References

External links

Blog in English about the Bulgarian elections in 2009

Adam Carr's Election Archive

hosted by the University of Sussex

Народно събрание на Република България/National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria

Blog in English about the Bulgarian elections in 2009

NSD: European Election Database - Bulgaria
publishes regional level election data; allows for comparisons of election results, 1990-2009 {{Bulgaria topics

Result in history

Parliamentary elections

Parliamentary election results

Recent elections

Presidential election

European Parliament elections

Past European Parliament elections since 2007

Referendums

Local elections

Recent elections

See also

References

External links