Bulgaria center-right leads in elections

According to early exit polls on Sunday, none of Bulgaria's leading parties had clinched an outright majority, and would therefore be looking for a coalition partner in the coming days.

The early results gave center-right GERB party of ex-Prime Minister Boyko Borisov roughly 33.2 percent of the vote. The Socialist Party (BSP), which had led the minority government until this summer, came in with roughly 16 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, Turkish minority party MRF won 14.1 percent of ballots cast on Sunday, according to news agency AFP. It was not immediately clear which of Bulgaria's six smaller parties had cleared the 4-percent hurdle needed to win a spot in the country's 240-seat parliament.

The votes of parties that fail to make the 4-percent grade will be given to those that succeeded in proportion to their result, meaning that the winner will receive most of these "lost" votes.

This year's snap elections were marked by a drop in voter turnout compared to the country's last parliamentary elections in May 2013. According to news agency DPA, only 23 percent of Bulgaria's 6.9 million registered voters had cast their ballots at the halfway point on Sunday, compared to 27.5 percent last year.

The new government will replace that of Bulgaria's ex-Socialist prime minister, Plamen Oresharski, who had formed a minority government with the MRF Turkish minority party in 2013 after anti-poverty protests forced the resignation of center-right Prime Minister Borisov.

However, the regime change did little to assuage the ailing economy or to solve the political crisis in the eastern European country. This summer, Oresharski's government was forced to resign in the face of numerous no-confidence votes and losing the support of its coalition partner. His Socialist Party had also been weakened by a poor showing in the European Parliament elections in May.

Bulgaria is the poorest of the EU's 28 member states. It has been plagued by instability in recent years, with sluggish economic growth, a loss of investment, persistent deflation and rising unemployment.

kms/nm (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)