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All 160 seats in the National Assembly 81 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 69.53% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
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Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria to elect members of the XXIV Ordinary National Assembly between 6 and 27 March 1938, the first after the 1934 coup. [1] The elections were held on a non-partisan basis, with all parties banned. [2] Pro-government candidates won a majority of seats. [3] Voter turnout was 70%. [4] Women were allowed to vote – for the first time – if they were married, divorced or widowed. [5]
Despite gerrymandering and manipulation, the opposition performed unexpectedly well and after the election the government pressured some of their elected MPs into supporting the government. [6] Following the election, three meetings were held in April 1938, one with 17 MPs from the regions of Burgas and Stara Zagora, one with 42 from Vratsa, Pleven and Shumen and one with 32 from Plovdiv and Sofia, with all of them expressing support for the government and a further six expressed support without being present, for a total of 97 pro-government MPs. Despite the non-partisan nature of the election, only ten elected MPs had never previously been members of any defunct parties. [7]
For the first time since 1911 the election was held under first-past-the-post, with 160 separate constituencies, some of them gerrymandered.
The elections were held on different dates in different regions to facilitate the presence of the armed forces for voter dispersion during the electoral campaign and exert pressure, make arrest and hinder the distribution of opposition ballots on election day.
Party or alliance | Votes | % | Seats | |||
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Government | Democratic Alliance–Moshanov | 31 | ||||
Right-wing BZNS factions [b] | 30 | |||||
NSD–Tsankov | 18 | |||||
Others | 8 | |||||
Independents | 10 | |||||
Total | 97 | |||||
Democratic Unification | Petorka [c] | 41 | ||||
Bulgarian Communist Party | 5 | |||||
BZNS–Midday | 9 | |||||
Democratic Party | 1 | |||||
Total | 56 | |||||
National Social Movement–Kalfov | 3 | |||||
National Liberal Party (G. Petrov) | 1 | |||||
People's Party | 1 | |||||
Independents | 2 | |||||
Total | 160 | |||||
Total votes | 2,261,862 | – | ||||
Registered voters/turnout | 3,252,883 | 69.53 | ||||
Source: Nohlen & Stöver (votes), Georgiev (seats) [7] |