Bulgarian Constitutional Assembly election, 1946

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Bulgarian Constitutional Assembly election, 1946
Flag of Bulgaria.svg
  1945 27 October 1946 1949  

400 seats to the Grand National Assembly
Turnout 92.6%

  First party
  Georgi Dimitrov.jpg
Leader Georgi Dimitrov
Party Bulgarian Communist Party
Seats won 278
Popular vote 2,264,852
Percentage 53.9%

PM before election

Kimon Georgiev
Fatherland Front

Elected PM

Georgi Dimitrov
Fatherland Front

Coat of arms of Bulgaria.svg
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
Bulgaria

Constitutional Assembly elections were held in Bulgaria on 27 October 1946. [1] The elections served to elect members to the 6th Grand National Assembly, tasked with adopting a new constitution. The Fatherland Front, an anti-fascist coalition dominated by the Bulgarian Communist Party, had come to power in 1944 following a coup. Now that the Second World War was over and the monarchy abolished the communists wanted to adopt a new constitution. The Communists won a large majority, with 53.5 percent of the vote and 278 of the 465 seats. Voter turnout was 92.6%. [2] This would be the lowest vote share that the Communists or the Fatherland Front would claim during the 43 years of undisguised Communist rule in Bulgaria. In subsequent years, the Fatherland Front would claim to win elections with unanimous or near-unanimous support.

Bulgaria country in Southeast Europe

Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east. The capital and largest city is Sofia; other major cities are Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 16th-largest country.

Fatherland Front (Bulgaria) political organization in Bulgaria

The Fatherland Front (OF) [Otečestven Front] was originally a Bulgarian political resistance movement during World War II. The Zveno movement, the communist Bulgarian Workers Party, a wing of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union and the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party, were all part of the OF. The constituent groups of the OF had widely contrasting ideologies and had only united in face of the pro-German, militarist dictatorship in Bulgaria. Still, initially the members of the OF worked together, without a single dominating group. Professional associations and unions could be members of the front, whilst still maintaining their organisational independence. However, the Bulgarian Communist Party began to dominate soon. In 1944, after the Soviet Union had declared war on Bulgaria, the OF committed a coup d'état and they declared war on Germany and the other Axis nations. The OF government, headed by Kimon Georgiev (Zveno), immediately signed a ceasefire treaty with the Soviet Union.

Bulgarian Communist Party political party in Bulgaria between 1903-1990

The Bulgarian Communist Party was the Communist and Marxist-Leninist ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 1989 when the country ceased to be a socialist state. The Bulgarian Communist Party had dominated the Fatherland Front coalition that took power in 1944, late in World War II, after it led a coup against Bulgaria's tsarist regime in conjunction with the Red Army's crossing the border. It controlled its armed forces, the Bulgarian People's Army.

Results

PartyVotes%Seats
Bulgarian Communist Party 2,264,85253.9278
BZNS-NPORSDP 1,191,45528.3101
Bulgarian Agrarian National Union 564,58113.468
Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party (Broad Socialists) 79,7741.99
Zveno 70,7311.78
Democratic Party 22,7360.50
Radical Democratic Party 8,8680.21
Independents2980.00
Invalid/blank votes63,319
Total4,266,614100465
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

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References

  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, pp368 ISBN   978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Nohlen & Stöver, p376