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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.
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. [1] [2]
GERB, the ruling party 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%. [3]
The turnout of the first round was 53.6% which was 5% higher than 2011 local elections.
GERB won 21 regional mayorships, the Reformist Bloc 3, 1 was won by a candidate backed by both. DPS also won 1 and an independent candidate won one. [4]
The politics of Bulgaria take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The Union of Democratic Forces is a political party in Bulgaria, founded in 1989 as a union of several political organizations in opposition to the communist government. The Union was transformed into a single unified party with the same name. The SDS is a member of the European People's Party (EPP). In the 1990s the party had the largest membership in the country, with one million members, but has since splintered into a number of small parties totaling no more than 40,000 members. The SDS proper had 12,000 members in 2016.
The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats is a Serb political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Founded in 1996, it is the governing party in Republika Srpska, with its leader, Milorad Dodik, serving as the current president of Republika Srpska. The party's vice-president, Željka Cvijanović, is the current member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while SNSD member Radovan Višković is the current prime minister of Republika Srpska.
GERB, an acronym for Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, is a conservative populist political party which was the ruling party of Bulgaria during the periods between 2009–2013, 2016–2021 and 2025-present.
Local elections were held in Romania on 1 June 2008, with a runoff for mayors on 15 June 2008.
Tsetska Tsacheva Dangovska is a Bulgarian politician and jurist. A member of centre-right conservative GERB political party, Dangovska has served as the Minister of Justice from 4 May 2017 to 5 April 2019. She had previously held the position of Chairwoman of the National Assembly of Bulgaria on two occasions. She was the first woman to ever chair the National Assembly since its establishment in 1878.
Presidential elections were held in Bulgaria on 23 October 2011, with a runoff held on 30 October 2011. Incumbent president Georgi Parvanov was not eligible for re-election; the Constitution of Bulgaria limits a president to two terms. No candidate won outright in the first round, resulting in a runoff between the eventual winner, Rosen Plevneliev of GERB, and Ivaylo Kalfin of the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
An election of the Members of the European Parliament from Bulgaria to the European Parliament was held on 25 May 2014 as part of the larger European Parliament election. After a decision by the European Council in 2013, Bulgaria was allocated 17 seats in the European Parliament for the Eighth European Parliament.
The ninety-fourth Cabinet of Bulgaria took office on November 7, 2014. It was a coalition government chaired by Boyko Borisov. The government was formed after Borisov's party, GERB, won the 2014 parliamentary election. As GERB won 84 out of the 240 seats in the National Assembly, they were compelled to form a coalition to legally govern.
In France, a municipal council is an elected body of the commune responsible for "executing, in its deliberations, the business of the town" (translated).
The election of the 5th delegation from Bulgaria to the European Parliament was held on 26 May 2019. All seats were up for election. The country forms a single constituency, with members elected by proportional representation using open lists.
The first round of the local elections for mayors and municipal councilors on both the local and provincial level in Bulgaria were held on 27 October 2019. The second round of the election took place on 3 November, as per the decree signed by the President of Bulgaria. 6,227,901 Bulgarians were included on the voter lists and were eligible to vote, a 136,000 voter reduction compared to the 2015 local elections.
Republicans for Bulgaria is a Bulgarian political party formed as a split from GERB by Tsvetan Tsvetanov, formerly the second most senior official in the ruling GERB party, after he was demoted from his positions by GERB leader and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. The party's abbreviation (RB) is an allusion to the defunct rightist Reformist Bloc coalition.
Snap parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 11 July 2021 after no party was able or willing to form a government following the April 2021 elections. The populist party There Is Such a People (ITN), led by musician and television host Slavi Trifonov, narrowly won the most seats over a coalition of the conservative GERB and Union of Democratic Forces parties. Four other parties won seats in the 240-member Parliament as well.
General elections were held in Bulgaria on 14 November 2021 to elect both the President and the National Assembly. They were the country's third parliamentary elections in 2021, with no party able to form a government after the elections in April and July. A second round of the presidential elections were held on 21 November 2021 as no candidate was able to receive a majority of the vote in the first round.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 2 April 2023 to elect members of the National Assembly. These were initially scheduled to be held before November 2026; however, as no government was approved by the 48th Parliament, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev announced in January 2023 that he would call a snap election.
Local elections in Bulgaria were held on 29 October 2023. Mayors and municipal councillors across the country were elected.
Vanya Rumenova Grigorova is a Bulgarian economist, trade unionist, labour activist, and politician. She was an economic counselor to the Confederation of Labour Podkrepa from 2015 to 2023. She unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Sofia in 2023 and is currently a member of the Sofia City Council.
Vili Mladenov Lilkov is a Bulgarian physicist, politician and author. He is a long term Member of the Sofia City Council and unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Sofia twice in 2015 and 2023.
Snap parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 27 October 2024, after all three attempts to form a government following the latest June 2024 elections failed. This was the country's sixth snap election since 2021. This series of snap elections is the result of a political crisis affecting the country.
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| Presidential elections | |
| Local elections | |
| European elections | |
| Eastern Rumelia elections | |
| Referendums | |
