Election commission at 84.57%: Iotova 34.6%, Gyurov 31.9% – run-off on November 1
Incumbent Iliana Iotova leads after the first round, but her margin over Andrey Gyurov has shrunk to 2.7 points. Official results are due on October 27.
Archive image · Photo: President.bg / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5 bg (cropped and resized)
With 84.57 percent of polling station protocols processed, the ticket of Iliana Iotova and Kiril Valchev has 34.6 percent of the vote, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) data as of 5 a.m. local time on Monday. Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev follow with 31.9 percent. Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin are third with 12.7 percent, ahead of Radostin Vasilev (4.5), Ivelin Mihaylov (3.9) and Ivan Hristanov (2.4). The option "I do not support anyone" drew 4.4 percent.
No ticket met the conditions for a first-round win: more than half of the valid votes with turnout above half of eligible voters. Iotova and Gyurov will therefore face each other in a run-off on Sunday, November 1. According to BTA, Iotova is backed by Progressive Bulgaria and the BSP, Gyurov by PP, Yes, Bulgaria, DSB and the Green Movement.
Turnout was historically low. In its data, the CEC gives 15.95 percent at 4 p.m. – 1,058,669 of 6,637,238 eligible voters. Pollsters estimate final turnout at around 22 percent. The CEC is due to announce the official first-round results on October 27.