According to a poll released by MBMD on Monday, public support for some of the underdogs in this year's presidential elections race is picking up.

The nationally representative survey, conducted between October 19 and 23 on 1,204 adults, revealed that 11 per cent of the electorate would vote for former Interior Minister Bogomil Bonev in the November 11 elections. The five percentage point increase from earlier polls almost pulls Bonev even with the Bulgarian Socialist Party's Georgi Purvanov, whose own support rose by three points to settle at 13 per cent.

The increase in support for the two presidential hopefuls has been attributed to a response from a portion of the electorate which was undecided when the campaign officially kicked off on October 12. The poll showed the proportion of undecided voters has dropped from 28 to 20 per cent over the past two weeks.

Current President Petar Stoyanov maintained his lead with the support of 38 per cent of the electorate, a one point drop from expectations at the beginning of the campaign.

The data indicates that the relatively passive strategy of the incumbent has not been of any considerable benefit to him so far, said sociologist Kancho Stoychev. While Stoyanov's slogan is "Personalities matter," the underlying message of his campaign has been "You already know me."

Hristo Popov, at Stoyanov's pre-election headquarters, said that the impression of passivity might be the result of the moderate character of Stoyanov's campaign. "We are not against anyone, we don't accuse anyone - contrary to other presidential candidates," he said.

He explained that Stoyanov plans on meeting as many people as possible in person in order to win their support.

Other polling agencies besides MBMD also gave the lead to Stoyanov. In an express survey conducted by the polling agency Fact on October 24, 35 per cent of the respondents were in favour of his candidacy. A Mediana poll, taken between October 17 and 22, said an even more convincing 46 per cent would support the current president for a second mandate.

Stoychev explained that Bonev's vigorous, even aggressive, performance so far has won the applause of a considerable part of the public. His slogan is "The strong president." Fourteen per cent of those surveyed favoured him in the Fact survey, but only 7.7 per cent did the same in the Mediana poll.

"I wouldn't call Bonev's campaign aggressive, he is a very mild and level-headed person," said Emil Vassilev, press secretary in Bonev's pre-election headquarters. "A more exact description of the campaign is `ambitious,'" he added.

While Bonev advances and increases his chances to emerge second in the struggle, in Stoychev's opinion, Purvanov remains firmly within the borders of his stable left electorate and will unlikely move beyond them by November 11.

The results of the Fact poll gave 18 per cent support to him, and according to Mediana agency he will take 14.8 per cent.

Former caretaker Prime Minister Reneta Indjova has made no significant improvement by MBMD survey standards, as the results did not indicate considerable support for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), which decided to officially back her.

George Ganchev and Petar Beron will be unlikely to pass the four per cent barrier. The MBMD public opinion poll predicted votes of 1.7 and 0.3 per cent for them respectively.

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Candidate Platforms

Petar Stoyanov and Nelly Kutskova

• Continuation of the policy of the current mandate
• Stabilization of Bulgarian democratic institutions
• Development of social market economy
• Support for small and medium-sized enterprises and agriculture
• Protection for the poorest from the inevitable consequences of economic reform
• Turn Bulgaria into an economically strong and constitutional state - a future member of the large Euro-Atlantic community
• Policy to be carried out by politicians with high personal morality
• Establishment of a civil movement against all forms of violence - against women and children, violence based on ethnicity and religion, violence at school and in the family
• Better role of women in community life

Georgi Purvanov and Angel Marin

• Another policy, another way of governance, anther morality
• Agreement, stability and security
• Protection of all national interests of the state and its citizens
• New concept for national security and the military doctrine responding to the new geopolitical realities and the situation in Southeast Europe
• Policy against the current right-wing and antisocial policy in Bulgaria
• Fighting poverty
• Implementing an anticorruption policy
• Upholding the Bulgarian ethnicity model based on ethnic and religious tolerance
• Revival and development of republicanism
• Support for Bulgarians and Bulgarian minorities abroad
• Foreign policy priorities - EU and NATO membership

Bogomil Bonev and Atanas Jelezchev

• Tax system with more simple laws and lower tax rates
• Judiciary system that will stand behind the fair businessmen
• Facilitated administrative procedures for all citizens
• Reform of the national security system
• Revision of all back-stage talks of the government, talks on behalf of the president concerning the deployment of Bulgarian troops in Macedonia
• Elimination of all types of inequalities within the Bulgarian society
• Fight corruption and poverty

George Ganchev and Vesselin Bonchev

• No discrimination based on religion
• Friendly relations with all neighbouring countries, Russia, the Arab world, the U.S. and UK.
• Fighting crime and corruption
• Fight poverty
• Eliminating the vicious practice for the past 12 years when the presidential institution was party and personal and never served the real interests of Bulgaria
• Making sure that all Roma people actually receive the money provided to them by international programs
• National security
• NATO and EU membership but at a worthy price

Petar Beron and Stoyan Andreev

• Achieve international respect towards Bulgaria and its people
• Full ethnic harmony
• Guaranteed national security
• Supremacy of law
• Combating crime
• Work with Bulgarians who live abroad for dealing with the problems of the state
• Work with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for uniting the Bulgarian people
• Work with all structures of civil society, incorporating Bulgarian intelligence in dealing with state issues
• Work with minorities for solving their problems

Reneta Indjova and Krastio Ilov

• Breaking the bipolar political model in Bulgaria
• Equality of all members of society
• Unity of the nation as a combination of different ethnicities, religions and social layers