Bulgaria's ruling GERB party narrowly leads pre-election opinion poll

The first opinion poll published by the independent Trend research group since Radev's announcement showed 27.6% of Bulgarians planning to vote in April will support Borissov's GERB party. The Socialist Party was on 24.9% support, according to the poll of 1,008 people, conducted between Jan 12 and 19.

Bulgaria's ruling centre-right GERB party has a narrow lead over its Socialist Party rivals two months before a parliamentary election, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday. President Rumen Radev, a critic of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, called the April 4 election two weeks ago, saying an "active, adequate and working government" was needed as soon as possible despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Borissov's centre-right coalition, in office since May 2017, has secured economic growth, but protests against corruption in the European Union's poorest member state last summer dented the prime minister's popularity. The first opinion poll published by the independent Trend research group since Radev's announcement showed 27.6% of Bulgarians planning to vote in April will support Borissov's GERB party.

The Socialist Party was on 24.9% support, according to the poll of 1,008 people, conducted between Jan 12 and 19. "The distance between the first two parties remains fragile and forming a government would not be an easy job," said Dimitar Ganev, a political analyst at Trend.

He said either GERB or the Socialists might be able to form a coalition government, with five parties likely to form the next parliament, and two other political factions having a chance of also passing the 4% threshold. A recently registered anti-elite party led by talk show host and singer Slavi Trifonov, There is Such A People, was third most popular with the support of 11.8% of respondents.

The ethnic-Turkish MRF party would get 10.3% percent and the liberal Democratic Bulgaria party, which supported the anti-government protests, would get 6%, the poll showed.