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November 15th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
Bulgaria’s third election in eight months looks to be a tight race with exit polls putting a newly created anti-corruption party just ahead of the former ruling GERB party.
According to surveys late on Sunday night, the new centrist party We Continue the Change (PP) has a three-point lead, with a surprise 26% of the vote compared to 23% for GERB, the conservative party of the ex-prime minister Boiko Borrisov.
It remains to be seen if either party will be able to form a coalition government, but there’s hope that the new PP party could become a potential kingmaker.
Founded only few weeks ago by two Harvard graduates, Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev, PP quickly won support due to their resolute anti-graft actions and pledges to bring transparency, zero tolerance for corruption and reforms to key sectors in the European Union’s poorest member.
“We will be the number one political force,” Petkov told reporters after initial results were released. “We will have a majority of 121 MPs in the 240-seat parliament and Bulgaria will have a regular coalition Cabinet.”
It could be days before the final official results are announced. If they confirm the initial counts, Petkov would be handed a mandate to form a new government.
There Is Such a People (ITN), headed by pop singer and former TV star Slavi Trifonov, was set to lose a considerable number of points after failing to form a coalition over the summer.
Voters in Bulgaria took to the polls once again on Sunday after inconclusive general elections in April and in July and amid a surge of coronavirus infections.
Bulgaria has the lowest vaccination rate in the European Union, with less than one-third of adults fully vaccinated.
There are two elections in one this time around.
Incumbent President Rumen Radev is running for a second five-year term and is expected to make it to a November 21st runoff vote. Exit polls showed him winning around 49% of the vote in the first round.
Turnout was low in Bulgaria at nearly 26% by 16:00, the Central Election Commission said. Around 6.7 million voters are eligible in this election.
There are 240 seats up for grabs in the parliament with seven main political groupings competing.
It’s likely that the election will result in weeks of negotiations in trying to form a coalition, with three parties attempting to do so before new elections are called.
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