New anti-corruption party expected to win Bulgaria’s election

A new anti-corruption political party is expected to win Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, Reuters reported. 

According to multiple exit polls, We Continue The Change (WCTC) was leading with about 26 percent of the vote as the GERB party of former Premier Boyko Borissov followed with 23-24 percent of the vote. 

According to the electoral commission data, 25.5 percent of citizens voted in the elections, a record low for election turnout. 

The country is in the midst of a political deadlock, as opponents of Borissov have been unable to form a government following elections in April and July. 

We Continue The Change, a centrist anti-graft party, was created in September by Harvard-educated entrepreneurs Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev.

Petkov, the party’s leader, said that “Bulgaria is headed onto a right path,” adding that his party understood the responsibility of forging a working government, according to Reuters. 

Petkov also said WCTC will press ahead with plans to overhaul the judiciary and tackle corruption. “We are promising zero corruption. This is what we are going after. No small tolerance, nothing, zero,” he told the newswire. 

Analysts have said that WCTC is better positioned to seal the coalition with the support of two small anti-corruption groupings and the Socialists, Reuters reported.