With 2024 being an election year in many countries across Europe and the Balkans, their diaspora communities which keep expanding in size are becoming more interested in electoral battles back home.
These communities are increasingly becoming aware of their key roles in shaping outcomes in an important year for elections across the region.
In Bulgaria for example, elections were held on June 9, the same day as the European Parliament elections. Bulgarians voted to elect representatives both at home and abroad.
As the size of the diaspora vote of most Balkan countries expands, 134,829 Bulgarians abroad voted in the June 9 domestic election, according to the Bulgarian Central Election Committee.
After the collapse of the most recent coalition government, these Bulgarian voters living abroad headed to 769 polling stations.
Turkey hosted the highest number, reflecting the high number of Bulgarian-Turkish citizens, who are the main target electorate for Bulgaria’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms, MRF.
This also made the MRF an election king maker; the party topped the foreign vote in the April 2023 election and did so again in June. Winning 15.9 per cent of total votes cast in the incomplete result, the MRF came in second place for the first time in its history, judging by the preliminary data.
Source: The Balkan Insight