Abstract
The Movement of Rights and Freedoms in Bulgaria: an Analysis of the General Elections on June 2005
The Movement of Rights and Liberties (MRL) gained an unexpected victory at the June 25 elections in Bulgaria, and was recorded as the third greater party in the parliament by receiving 34 chairs. Besides the strategies pursuited by the party, there are many other factors contributing to the victory of the MRL, of which most importants are: Participation to the elections among Bulgarians were low; the Turks incited by the rising Bulgarian nationalism went to the pools in a more percent; active stance of the ?social control? mechanism within the Turkish society thanks to the demographic structure of the Turks; hegemony of the MRL over Turkish votes; participation of Bulgarian Turks living in Turkey to the elections, etc. AH these factors helped the MRL become the key party in the Bulgarian poli-tical life, and it entered once more to the cabinet as a coalition partner.<
Keywords
Bulgarian Turks, MRF, Ahmet Doğan, ATAKA, NDSV, King Simeon II., BSP.