IFES Election Guide - Country Profile: Bulgaria

Country Profile:

Overview

Elections

News

Links

Region

Upcoming Elections

Presidential
October 2011

Bulgaria
Republic of Bulgaria
Region: Europe

Description of government structure:

Chief of State: President Georgi PARVANOV *
Head of Government: Prime Minister Boyko BORISOV **
Assembly: Bulgaria has a unicameral National Assembly (Narodno Sabranie) with 240 seats.

* Presidential elections take place under a two-round majority run-off system.

** BORISOV is set to become Prime Minister after his party emerged as leader from the 2009 parliamentary elections.

Description of electoral system:

The President is elected by majority vote to serve a 5-year term.
In the National Assembly (Narodno Sabranie), 209 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms and 31 members are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms.***

*** There are 31 multi-member districts in the list tier. There is a national threshold of 4 percent. Each MMD is also a single-member district in the nominal tier. Each voter gets two votes. Candidates in the list tier may stand in a maximum of two districts. Candidates in the nominal tier may stand in one district only.