More on the Bulgarian election results

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7b1XAOtcaLFd9u2SIEF-5FZGmL2Ts5lgMhMIeu4Kar_vFdtkNGhhqemVXqWsBPYxgLZ8b9PCZSOVRJBChNhBrh1XC0Ogn3X88EVKQkffxaGjucYN-QxngG7PPqMQftQIvoSinGL0gNOFp/s1600-h/ballot-box.jpeg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 110px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7b1XAOtcaLFd9u2SIEF-5FZGmL2Ts5lgMhMIeu4Kar_vFdtkNGhhqemVXqWsBPYxgLZ8b9PCZSOVRJBChNhBrh1XC0Ogn3X88EVKQkffxaGjucYN-QxngG7PPqMQftQIvoSinGL0gNOFp/s320/ballot-box.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356110586500566354" border="0" //aWikipedia a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_parliamentary_election,_2009" now has a page on the Bulgarian Parliamentary elections /a. The Bulgarian Parliament elected following the elections on 5th July will have 240 seats elected by list PR and 31 single-member seats based on provinces.br /br /The Coalition for the European Development of Bulgaria - on just 39.72% of the vote seems to have got 116 seats. This is almost a majority, suggesting that the high PR threshold enables parties with only about 40% of the votes to get half the PR seats - if there are a number of small parties that fail to pass the 4% threshold.br /br /The Coalition for Bulgaria (the bloc led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party) got 40 seats. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms got 38 seats. National Union Attack got 21 seats for their 9% of the vote. The Blue Coalition got 15 seats and a bloc called "Order, Truthfulness and Justice" got 10 seats on 4.13% of the vote - just squeaking past the threshold. The party of the former King lost all its parliamentary seats. It polled just 3.02%.br /br /Out of the 31 single-member seats, the Coalition for the European Development of Bulgaria (known as GERB) got 26. No other party got any - other than the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The MRF won five seats, which I presume was in provinces with a substantial ethnic Turkish population. This result illustrates that, if the whole election had been held by FPTP, the result would have been a GERB landslide, with most opposition members coming from areas with large Turkish popoulations. This would have contributed to ethnic and political polarisation in the country - and a weak opposition. In that way, it strikes me that PR is best for a situation like this. It ensures that substantial electoral blocs like the BSP, National Union Attack and the Blue Coalition aren't denied representation simply because they may be unable to top the poll in any given district.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/38622711-9040855716582811576?l=vinospoliticalblog.blogspot.com'//div

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