Bulgarian centre-right party wins EU vote: final results

(SOFIA) - Bulgaria's centre-right opposition GERB party beat Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's governing socialists in European Parliament elections, final results by the central electoral commission showed Wednesday.

The results, released after a second verification count of all ballots, showed of Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov's GERB party winning 24.36 percent of the vote and five seats within the ranks of the European People's Party, the biggest in the next parliament.

The Bulgarian Socialist party came second with 18.50 percent, and four seats, followed by the liberal Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms party with 14.14 percent, and three seats, and the ultra-nationalist Ataka party of firebrand Volen Siderov with 11.96 percent, and two seats.

The liberal National Movement for Stability and Progress party of former king Simeon Saxe Coburg, whose list of candidates was led by European Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, won 7.96 percent of the votes, securing two seats in the next EU parliament.

It was followed by the Blue Coalition of the small Union of Democratic Forces and Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria right-wing parties that garnered 7.95 percent, and one deputy seat, the commission said.

More Bulgarian voters -- 37.49 percent -- cast ballots oin the vote Sunday than in 2007 when Bulgaria joined the EU and elected its first European parliament deputies. Turnout then was just 28.6 percent.

Some 6.7 million Bulgarians were eligible to choose Bulgaria's 17 deputies to the European legislature in a vote seen as a litmus test for the country's parliamentary elections in a month's time.

Between 2007, when it joined the bloc, and this year Bulgaria has had 18 deputies at the European Parliament: five for GERB, five for the Socialists, four for the MRF, three for Ataka and one for the NMSP.