Bulgarians were voting in their country’s seventh snap election in four years, with dim hope of an end to political turmoil that has favoured the country’s far right.
Opinion polls suggest no single party will win a majority in the vote on Sunday, likely ushering in yet more prolonged coalition talks.
Bulgaria has had a succession of short-lived governments since 2020 when anticorruption protests helped end a coalition led by the centre-right GERB party, which brought down the cabinet of three-time Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.
Six consecutive votes so far have failed to yield a stable government. Sunday’s vote was triggered after an inconclusive June 9 election failed to bring agreement by Bulgaria’s political parties to form a coalition government.
Voters are sceptical that Sunday’s election will end the political impasse in one of the poorest European Union member states.
"I don’t think they will form a government” after the election, Marin Kushev, 69, told the Reuters news agency after casting his ballot in the capital, Sofia. "I don’t believe them [politicians].” (Agencies)