at the 2009 elections it increased to 14.0% of vote and 37 out of 240 seats. following the election, the government was totally occupied by the decisive winner, the citizens for european development of bulgaria (gerb) party and the movement for rights and freedoms was еxcluded from the government and remained in opposition after having been part of coalition governments for the two consecutive preceding terms between 2001 and 2009. at the 2009 european parliament elections the party won 14.1% of the vote and three meps out of bulgaria's total representation of 18. two of the meps are ethnic turks (filiz husmenova and metin kazak) and one (vladko panayotov) is ethnic bulgarian.