2015 Bulgarian local elections

Local elections were held in all municipalities in Bulgaria on 25 October 2015 (first round) and on 1 November 2015 (second round). Voters elected municipal mayors, village mayors and members of municipal councils of 265 municipalities. They were held alongside a referendum on the electoral code.

Background

The local elections took place after two years of political instability and it was a test for the two year old fragile ruling left-central coalition led by BSP party. Analysts expected the elections to bring a serious changes in the government of Plamen Oresharski. A national referendum was also scheduled together with the local elections. The referendum was initiated by the President of Bulgaria, Rosen Plevneliev on online voting, after the other two questions about mandatory voting and majority rep ware rejected by the parliament.

Controversy

The election campaign was accompanied by multiple scandals about vote-buying, voting tourists and arrests. On the election day, the election authorities in some polling stations did not provide ballots. After the first round, members of election officials were kept 48 hours locked in the election authority counting center at Arena Aremeec Hall.

Results

First round

GERB, the leading party in the opposition won 34.5% of the vote and their incumbent mayors were reelected in Sofia, Burgas, Varna, Veliko Tarnov, Stara Zagora, Blagoevgrad and Haskovo. Second and third were the government parties the Bulgarian Socialist Party with 17.2% and the Right and Freedom Movement (the Turkish ethnic party) with 14.6%. The smaller parties from the opposition, the Reformist Block, ABV and the Patriot Front, got respectively 9%, 4.3% and 5.2%.

The turnout of the first round was 53.6% which was 5% higher than 2011 local elections.