No winner in first round: Bulgaria sets presidential runoff for Nov. 1
Bulgaria’s presidential election is heading to a November 1 runoff between incumbent President Iliana Iotova and former caretaker Prime Minister Andrey Gurov after a low voter turnout at 22% yielded a close first round on Sunday, Qazinform News Agency cited BTA.
The Iotova-Valchev ticket has secured 34.76% of the vote, while Gurov-Kandev has received 31.95%, with 99.95% of tally sheets processed by the district election commissions. The figures are as of 10 a.m. on Monday, according to data published on the Central Election Commission's (CEC) website.
Under the Constitution, a presidential candidate can be elected in the first round only if they receive more than half of the valid votes cast and more than half of all eligible voters take part in the election. If no candidate is elected, a new vote is held within seven days, with the two candidates who received the most votes taking part.
The results of the presidential and vice-presidential election show the following distribution:
Ilana Iotova/Kiril Valchev - 34.76%
Andrey Gurov/Georgi Kandev - 31.95%
Kostadin Kostadinov/Petar Volgin - 12.54%
Radostin Vasilev/Krasimir Manov - 4.61%
Ivelin Mihaylov/Yuliana Mateeva - 3.79%
Ivan Hristanov/Stoyanka Cherkezova - 2.39%
The “I do not support any candidate” option was chosen by 4.43% of voters.
A total of 6,637,238 voters were eligible to take part in Sunday's election, in which 27 presidential and vice-presidential tickets competed. Some 46,001 people were eligible to vote for the first time.
As previously reported, Bulgarian citizens were voting Sunday to elect the country's seventh president.