Bulgarian parliamentary election, 1962

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Bulgarian Parliamentary elections, 1962
Flag of Bulgaria.svg
  1957 25 February 1962 1966  

400 seats to the Grand National Assembly
Turnout 100%

  First party
  Todor Zivkov (fototeca.iiccr.ro).jpg
Leader Todor Zhivkov
Party BCP
Alliance Fatherland Front
Seats won 321
Popular vote 5,461,224
Percentage 100%

PM before election

Anton Yugov
Fatherland Front

Elected PM

Todor Zhivkov
Fatherland Front

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

Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 25 February 1962. [1] Voters were presented with a single list from the Fatherland Front, dominated by the Bulgarian Communist Party. As the Fatherland Front was the only organisation to contest the election and all candidate lists had to be approved by the Front, voters only had the option of voting for or against the Front list. [2] Only 1,668 of the 5,462,892 valid votes were cast against the Front list. Voter turnout was reportedly 99.7%. [3]

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+/–
Fatherland Front 5,461,224100321+74
Against1,6680.0
Invalid/blank votes3,625
Total5,466,517100321+74
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

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References

  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p368 ISBN   978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Bulgaria: a country study. Library of Congress Federal Research Division, December 1989.
  3. Nohlen & Stöver, p381