- Iliyana Yotova won 34.759% of the vote, ahead of WCC-DB-backed Andrey Gyurov on 31.953%, with a runoff due on Nov. 1
- Turnout was about 22.9%, the lowest for a national election in Bulgaria’s democratic period after 1990
- The vote was driven largely by party cores, with neither Yotova nor Gyurov clearly expanding beyond the blocs backing them
- Very low turnout in MRF strongholds, including Kardzhali and Belitsa, may reflect a partial boycott and leaves a decisive abstaining electorate for the runoff
- Nationalist MECh leader Radostin Vasilev backed Gyurov, but GERB, MRF and Revival voters remain decisive for the runoff
Progressive Bulgaria and Bulgarian Socialist Party-backed Iliyana Yotova won the first round of Bulgaria’s presidential election with 34.759% of the vote, ahead of Andrey Gyurov, backed by We Continue the Change (WCC) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB), on 31.953%, according to Central Election Commission results with 99.95% of protocols from polling stations processed. The two candidates will face each other in a runoff on Nov. 1. Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin, the candidates of the nationalist and pro-Russian Revival party, finished third with 12.544%, while nationalist MECh leader Radostin Vasilev and Krasimir Manov placed fourth with 4.608%. Neither GERB nor the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) fielded an official candidate or formally endorsed a candidate before the first round, leaving two substantial electorates without a direct party choice.
The defining result was turnout of around 22.9%, the lowest recorded for a national election in Bulgaria’s democratic period after 1990. The outcome can also be read as a warning for Progressive Bulgaria. Yotova’s roughly 529,000 votes were around 900,000 below Progressive Bulgaria’s tally in the April parliamentary election. The comparison is not a direct measure of lost support, as turnout collapsed and presidential elections follow a different electoral logic. Yet the scale of the gap indicates that a significant part of the governing party’s April electorate either abstained or chose another candidate.
The turnout and exit-poll profile suggest that the first round was dominated primarily by committed party cores, albeit with limited cross-party transfers. The 4.426% who selected “I support no one” represented an additional, though smaller, expression of dissatisfaction among those who did vote. Gyurov’s result of around 486,000 votes was modestly above the roughly 410,000 secured by WCC-DB in April, while Alpha Research estimated that only slightly more than 30% of GERB’s April electorate, or around 130,000 voters, participated. Of those GERB voters who did vote, 39% backed Gyurov, 22% Yotova and 8% Kostadinov. The figures indicate some cross-party support for Gyurov, but within a sharply reduced and highly selective electorate rather than through broad mobilisation. Voting was conducted mainly through machines under the new electoral rules, with paper ballots available only in defined exceptions. The system may have discouraged some voters accustomed to paper ballots, but the available evidence does not allow its effect to be separated from wider political apathy and the absence of GERB and MRF candidates.
The regional turnout pattern will be especially important for the runoff. During election day, Kardzhali recorded the country’s lowest Central Election Commission-reported participation, at 6.77% at 16:00. Alpha Research estimated that only 15% of MRF voters went to the polls nationwide. In Belitsa, where MRF deputy chairman and mayor Radoslav Revanski remains in custody, turnout was below 8%, with only around 610 of almost 7,900 registered voters casting ballots. Local residents openly linked the boycott to Revanski’s detention. These cases are consistent with a wider reluctance among MRF supporters to participate, although they do not by themselves establish a nationally coordinated boycott. They do, however, show that a substantial pool of voters could still be mobilised or remain at home in the second round.
The runoff will therefore depend less on formal party endorsements than on whether the candidates can bring abstaining voters back to the polls. Nationalist MECh leader Radostin Vasilev, whose ticket received 4.608% of the vote, quickly called on his supporters to vote for Gyurov or stay at home rather than back Yotova. Nikolay Nenchev, the former defence minister and leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BZNS), who received 0.38%, also backed Gyurov in a Facebook post. Gyurov has said he will seek civic rather than party support and will not negotiate with GERB or MRF leaderships. Yotova, meanwhile, used her election-night speech to say that she wanted to see Bulgarian, rather than foreign, flags in the country’s cities, a message that could appeal to parts of Kostadinov’s nationalist and pro-Russian electorate. Overall, the 2.806 percentage-point gap leaves the result open. Turnout among GERB and MRF voters, as well as the direction of Kostadinov’s Revival supporters, will determine whether Yotova converts her first-round lead into victory.